Saturday, August 18, 2012

500 miles to go

Kotuku continues on her merry way.  Around 1930 ZPDT Kotuku was visited by a pod of around 40 Dall's porpoises.  Matt got some underwater footage with the GoPro that is kind of cool.  John has video and Steve has some stills.  One curious observation around 40-50% of them had no dorsal fin??  the ones w/o dorsal were all black, no white patches.  Young ones?  Fukoshima ones?  Help us out, thanks Al

Any ideas?  I am off on a boat myself which is why posts are delayed. -Graeme
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2 comments:

  1. BradAugust 19, 2012 at 11:31 AM

    Your strange dark porpoises may be 'hybrids' though no mention in wiki about dorsal finless: "One study[10] determined through DNA sequencing that a fetus found in British Columbia was an intergeneric hybrid of a Dall's porpoise and a harbour porpoise. This hybrid may not be rare— it may describe the origins of some atypically coloured individuals that otherwise appear to be Dall's porpoises spotted off the coast of Vancouver Island." fair winds!
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    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 23, 2012 at 9:21 AM

    Northern Right Whale Dolphin

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_right_whale_dolphin

    ReplyDelete

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