🇬🇧 A few weeks ago, I published a post about the stranding of a group of pilot whales on one of the beaches of Boa Vista Island in Cape Verde. Unfortunately, these were rather sad images showing the decomposing remains of many animals that attracted the biggest scavengers around, namely tiger sharks, to the beach. Quite sensational but sad images. You can view these images and the video that goes with them by clicking on the following link:[GLOBICEPHALES VIDEO ET PHOTOShttps://ecency.com/hive-186141/@marc-allaria/qoaiyutzkm](https://ecency.com/hive-186141/@marc-allaria/qoaiyutzkm)
🇬🇧 This week, I am publishing again some images on the same subject as that of pilot whales in Cape Verde. But this time with live animals! It’s still better like that!! I made a crossing for clients between Boa Vista Island and Sal Island. The weather was very calm, too calm for a sailor to have to use his engines rather than his sails, but it gave us very mild conditions and especially allowed us to observe in the best way everything that could happen on the surface of the sea. Flying fish, sea birds, floating organisms, everything becomes easier to observe when the conditions calm down. And then, a big "plop" created by two large dolphins caught our eye. We quickly realized that we had dolphins around us, but we did not yet know that these dolphins were scouts for a much larger group of marine mammals, pilot whales. Large fins and much calmer attitudes quickly appeared. Very black, almost immobile, we had to deal with a group of golobicephalous perhaps in sleep, resting who seemed not to want too much to move in front of the boat. The occasion was beautiful and we were able to approach these toothed whales, observed that some were changing their route to get closer to us, observed one or two juveniles a little crazier than the adults, and in all this organization some big beefs that seemed to want to create disorder or entertainment! Anthropomorphic point of view, obviously !!
🇬🇧 Pilot whales are part of toothed whales. They can measure between 3 and 5m long at adulthood. They have the particularity like the pelopenncephalans of not having a rostrum like the dolphins with common morphology. It is a truly imposing animal that can reach 4 tons in adulthood. There are 2 main species. Black pilot whale and tropical pilot whale. It is extremely difficult to differentiate these two species by boat observation. The only big morphological difference comes from the length of their pectoral fins which unfortunately remain invisible under water when observed from a boat. Due to their distribution, which still needs to be refined, it is likely that we observed the Tropical Pilot Whale (Globicephala macrorynchus) this week, but this remains to be confirmed. In any case, this animal has no semblance, not afraid of boats, and can be observed without problem. We will not forget!
Information from my personal experience and the book "DAUPHINS BALEINES ET MARSOUINS - Mark Cawardine"