New sub-species of pilot whale identified in Pacific Ocean

Date:  June 3, 2019

Source:  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Short-finned pilot whales are found over a wide swath of the world's oceans, with habitats in the Indian, and Pacific, and North Atlantic oceans. Despite this wide distribution, the whales have been recognized as a single species -- but a recent study has found that two unique subspecies actually exist. The study published June 3, 2019, in Molecular Ecology.

Japanese whalers and scientists have long described two "forms" of short-finned pilot whales with distinct body types -- the 'Naisa' form, which live in Southern Japan and have square-shaped heads; and the 'Shiho' form, which lives in northern Japan and have round heads. Yet no prior study had examined the genetic diversity of those whales on a global scale, says Amy Van Cise, a postdoctoral scholar at WHOI and lead author on the study.

"You can't manage animals globally without understanding their diversity. If you think of a group of animals as a single species, and it turns out they're not, you could wind up accidentally losing an entire subspecies without knowing it," she says.

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