Red Sea Cetacean Review - Sightings

Marina Costa; Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara; Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara

doi:10.15468/753pd4

Red Sea Cetacean Review - Sightings

Citation

Notarbartolo di Sciara G., Kerem D., Smeenk C., Rudolph P., Cesario A., Costa M., Elasar M., Feingold D., Fumagalli M., Goffman O., Hadar N., Mebrathu Y.T., Scheinin A. 2017. Cetaceans of the Red Sea. CMS Technical Series 33. 86p. https://doi.org/10.15468/753pd4 accessed via GBIF.org on 2024-12-15.

Description

Original provider: Tethys Research Institute Dataset credits: Marina Costa, Amina Cesario, Maddalena Fumagalli & Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara, Tethys Research Institute Chris Smeenk Eritrea Project - Yohannes Mebrahtu IMMRAC Peter Rudolph Red Sea Dolphin Project - HEPCA Abstract: Based on a review of the literature, complemented by original observations at sea made by the authors during the past 34 years, the cetacean fauna in the Red Sea appears to be composed by a total of 16 species: three Mysticetes (Bryde’s whale, Balaenoptera edeni; Omura’s whale, B. omurai; and humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae) and 13 Odontocetes (dwarf sperm whale, Kogia sima; killer whale, Orcinus orca; false killer whale, Pseudorca crassidens; short-finned pilot whale, Globicephala macrorhynchus; Risso’s dolphin, Grampus griseus; Indian Ocean humpback dolphin, Sousa plumbea; rough-toothed dolphin, Steno bredanensis; Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops aduncus; common bottlenose dolphin, T. truncatus; pantropical spotted dolphin, Stenella attenuata; spinner dolphin, S. longirostris; striped dolphin, S. coeruleoalba; Indo-Pacific common dolphin, Delphinus delphis tropicalis). This review presents the very first documented and confirmed sightings of B. omurai, K. sima and S. bredanensis in the Red Sea. Of all the above species, however, only nine (Bryde’s whale, false killer whale, Risso’s dolphin, Indian Ocean humpback dolphin, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin, common bottlenose dolphin, pantropical spotted dolphin, spinner dolphin, and Indo-Pacific common dolphin) appeared to occur regularly in the Red Sea, the remaining seven only occurring sporadically as vagrants from the Indian Ocean. Even regular species appeared not to be uniformly distributed throughout the Red Sea, e.g., with Indo-Pacific common dolphins mostly limited to the southern portion of the region, and the Gulf of Suez only hosting the two bottlenose dolphin species and Indian Ocean humpback dolphins. No convincing evidence was found of the Red Sea occurrence of two whale species mentioned in the literature: the common minke whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, and the sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus. The absence from the region of deep diving species (e.g., Ziphiidae and the sperm whale) can be explained by the geomorphology of the Straits of Bab al Mandab, with its extended shallow sill likely to discourage incursions by such species into the Red Sea. The coordinated effort and the different expertise of the authors has contributed to amend previous mistakes and inaccuracies, verify and validate specimen identification, highlight features of relevance for species taxonomy and, most importantly, draw a fundamental baseline to inform conservation of cetaceans in the Red Sea. Purpose: To release updated information about cetacean species in the Red Sea and review existing information from published and grey literature. Supplemental information: Sighting records were collected from the data owners: Chris Smeenk Eritrea Project - Yohannes Mebrahtu Israel Marine Mammal Research & Assistance Center - IMMRAC Mia Elasar, Daphna Feingold, Oz Goffman, Nir Hadar, Dan Kerem, Aviad Scheinin Peter Rudolph Red Sea Dolphin Project - HEPCA This dataset incorporated the previously published dataset "IMMRAC marine mammal sightings from the Red Sea (http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/1145)". Temporal resolution varies per record. Time values are not available. "tprecision" column is added to indicate the resolution.

Purpose

To release updated information about cetacean species in the Red Sea and review existing information from published and grey literature.

Sampling Description

Study Extent

NA

Sampling

NA

Method steps

NA

Additional info

marine, harvested by iOBIS

Taxonomic Coverages

Scientific names are based on the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).

Balaenoptera edeni
common name: Eden's whale rank: species
Balaenoptera omurai
common name: Omurai's Whale rank: species
Balaenoptera
common name: baleen whales rank: genus
Delphinus capensis tropicalis
common name: Indo-Pacific common dolphin rank: subspecies
Globicephala macrorhynchus
common name: Short-finned Pilot Whale rank: species
Grampus griseus
common name: Risso's Dolphin rank: species
Megaptera novaeangliae
common name: Humpback Whale rank: species
Orcinus orca
common name: Killer Whale rank: species
Pseudorca crassidens
common name: False Killer Whale rank: species
Sousa chinensis
common name: Chinese white dolphin rank: species
Stenella attenuata
common name: Pantropical Spotted Dolphin rank: species
Stenella coeruleoalba
common name: Striped Dolphin rank: species
Stenella longirostris
common name: Spinner Dolphin rank: species
Stenella
common name: spinner dolphins rank: genus
Tursiops aduncus
common name: Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphin rank: species
Tursiops
common name: bottlenose dolphins rank: genus
Tursiops truncatus
common name: Common Bottlenose Dolphin rank: species

Geographic Coverages

Red Sea,Egypt,Sudan,Eritrea,Yemen,Saudi Arabia,Israel,Gulf,Suez,Aqaba

Bibliographic Citations

Contacts

Marina Costa
originator
position: Primary contact
Tethys Research Institute
email: marinza.costa@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.tethys.org

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara
originator
position: Secondary contact
Tethys Research Institute
email: tethys@tethys.org
homepage: http://www.tethys.org

OBIS-SEAMAP
metadata author
Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Duke University
A328 LSRC building
Durham
27708
NC
US
email: seamap-contact@duke.edu
homepage: http://seamap.env.duke.edu

OBIS-SEAMAP
distributor
Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Duke University
A328 LSRC building
Durham
27708
NC
US
email: seamap-contact@duke.edu
homepage: http://seamap.env.duke.edu

Marina Costa
owner
position: Primary contact
Tethys Research Institute
email: marinza.costa@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.tethys.org

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara
originator
position: Secondary contact
Tethys Research Institute
email: tethys@tethys.org
homepage: http://www.tethys.org

Marina Costa
administrative point of contact
position: Primary contact
Tethys Research Institute
email: marinza.costa@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.tethys.org