Record of a specimen of Shepherd´s Beaked Whale (Tasmacetus shepherdi) from the coast of Santa Cruz, Argentina, with notes on age determination

GRANDI MARIA FLORENCIA; BUREN, ALEJANDRO; CRESPO ENRIQUE ALBERTO; GARCÍA NÉSTOR ANÍBAL; SVENDSEN, GUILLERMO M.; DANS, SILVANA LAURA

THE LATIN AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AQUATIC MAMMALS

SOLAMAC

Lugar: Valparaiso; Año: 2005 vol. 4 p. 97 - 100

1676-7497

The Ziphiidae family comprises 21 living species(Dalebout et al., 2004) inhabiting oceanic waters, usuallybeyond the continental shelf. The majority of these speciesare primarily known from a small number of strandingsor the occasional sightings at sea. As a result, biologicaland ecological information of many beaked whale speciesis limited and new records provide valuable data.In September 2003 a specimen of Shepherd?s beaked whale(Tasmacetus shepherdi) was found stranded on a beach closeto Santa Cruz lighthouse (50º09?S, 68º21?W) in the vicinityof Puerto Punta Quilla, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina.Tasmacetus shepherdi is the only beaked whale with a fullset of functional teeth in both jaws, and was first describedin 1937 on the basis of a partial skeleton from New Zealand(Oliver, 1937). Around 20 strandings have been registered,12 in the coasts of New Zealand (Sorensen, 1940; Smith,1965; Gaskin, 1968), two in the Juan Fernandez Islands(Brownell et al., 1976), seven in Argentina (Mead andPayne, 1975; Goodall and Galeazzi, 19884; Benegas andSerino, 20005; Goodall, pers. comm.), one in Australia, andanother one in the South Sandwich Islands (Mead, 2002).In addition, there are four sightings attributed to thisspecies: one each from New Zealand (Watkins, 1976),Gough Island (Pym, 20036), between Falkland (Malvinas)Islands and South Georgia (Laughlin, 1996), and theSeychelles (Mead, 2002). On the basis of the stranding andsighting locations, Shepherd?s beaked whale is thought tohave a circumpolar distribution in cold temperate watersof the Southern Hemisphere (Jefferson et al., 1993).