Red Sea Cetacean Review - Sightings

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.

基于对现有文献的综述，并辅以作者在过去34年间在海上进行的原始观察，红海中的鲸类动物群似乎由总计16个物种组成：三种须鲸（布氏鲸，Balaenoptera edeni；大翅鲸，B. omurai；以及座头鲸，Megaptera novaeangliae）和十三种齿鲸（侏儒抹香鲸，Kogia sima；杀人鲸，Orcinus orca；伪虎鲸，Pseudorca crassidens；短鳍领航鲸，Globicephala macrorhynchus；鼠海豚，Grampus griseus；印度洋座头鲸，Sousa plumbea；糙齿海豚，Steno bredanensis；印度-太平洋瓶鼻海豚，Tursiops aduncus；普通瓶鼻海豚，T. truncatus；热带斑海豚，Stenella attenuata；旋鳍海豚，S. longirostris；带纹海豚，S. coeruleoalba；印度-太平洋普通海豚，Delphinus delphis tropicalis）。本综述首次记录并证实了B. omurai、K. sima和S. bredanensis在红海的发现。然而，上述所有物种中，仅有九种（布氏鲸、伪虎鲸、鼠海豚、印度洋座头鲸、印度-太平洋瓶鼻海豚、普通瓶鼻海豚、热带斑海豚、旋鳍海豚和印度-太平洋普通海豚）在红海中呈现出定期的出现，其余七种仅作为印度洋的流浪者偶尔出现。即使是定期出现的物种，在红海中的分布也并不均匀，例如，印度-太平洋普通海豚主要局限于该区域的南部，苏伊士湾仅栖息着两种瓶鼻海豚物种和印度洋座头鲸。未发现关于文献中提到的两种鲸类物种（普通小须鲸，Balaenoptera acutorostrata，和抹香鲸，Physeter macrocephalus）在红海出现的令人信服的证据。深潜物种（例如，鲸头科和抹香鲸）在区域内的缺失可以归因于曼达布海峡的地质形态，其延伸的浅滩可能阻碍了此类物种进入红海的尝试。作者之间的协作努力和不同的专业知识有助于纠正先前的错误和不准确之处，验证和确认样本鉴定，突出对物种分类学具有重要意义的特征，最重要的是，为红海鲸类的保护提供了基本基准。

目的：

发布关于红海鲸类物种的最新信息，并回顾已发表的及灰色文献中的现有信息。

补充信息：

观察记录由数据所有者收集：

Chris Smeenk

厄立特里亚项目 - Yohannes Mebrahtu

以色列海洋哺乳动物研究及援助中心 - IMMRAC

Mia Elasar, Daphna Feingold, Oz Goffman, Nir Hadar, Dan Kerem, Aviad Scheinin

Peter Rudolph

红海海豚项目 - HEPCA

本数据集纳入了先前发布的数据集“IMMRAC红海海洋哺乳动物观察记录”（http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/1145）。时间分辨率因记录而异。时间值不可用。新增了“tprecision”列以指示分辨率。