Hi #AmazingNature Community!
Always wishing everyone a good day. Let's remember that the sun rises for @everyone!😃🌞
This is one more publication so that together we can appreciate and contemplate how wonderful our nature is! I prefer the marine and aquatic environment, that is my specialty🐬🐟🦈🦀🐢🐳🐙 I hope you enjoy it!🐬🐟🦈🦀🐢🐳🐙🤗
Few people at Hive have followed my path. But they will know how much my passion is for nature but more specifically for the marine environment (you can see this in my posts on marine biology).
I am a marine biologist and now a Master of Science with a specialty in Marine Mammals, this happened recently on December 3 of this year.
Taking total leght of the dolphin. Cancún, México.
My experience working with marine mammals
I previously wrote a post on Hive Proposal where I talk more in depth about my experience with marine mammals under human care (@juanbg/a-proposal-for-science-our-ocean-needs- us). I know, many negative things have been said about these places, but, I can say that until you get involved in something specific, you cannot draw conclusions about it.
My personal conclusions are the following: despite the fact that in these places the main thing is the interaction with the visitors, I have found total support to carry out my Master's studies. Something very important to take into consideration is that dolphins do receive everything they need to be healthy, and they are never forced to do "tricks" as many believe. It operates under "operant conditioning" where the horse decides to participate in the activity on a voluntary basis, this occurs in all dolphinariums in Mexico.
Dolphins reach more than 2 meters long!
The Master of Science
More than two years have passed since I started the master's degree, if I could take some of the many lessons learned during this stage, it would be that YOU CAN GET AS FAR AS YOU WANT. And this despite the difficulties that may exist in Latin America or where you live, there will always be someone who wants to help you.
In the Master, I worked with two species of dolphins that we can find in dolphinariums: the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus).
Scientific popularization conference at the university.
How did this work contribute to science?
I remember that many people questioned the usefulness of this type of study, but it must be taken into account that biological studies often serve to merely contribute to the knowledge of the species. If not, how would we know that some turtles are in danger of extinction? or how would we know that polar bears are losing their habitat? We know all this with biological studies that only help to have more knowledge about a species.
The title of this master's thesis was: "AGE AND GROWTH OF TONIN (Tursiops truncatus) AND INDO-PACIFIC TONIN (Tursiops aduncus), UNDER CONDITIONS OF CAPTIVITY"
Knowing and determining the age of a species is as important as knowing what it eats or where it lives. In addition, this allows other types of studies to be carried out, for example, suppose that hundreds of dolphins have died and their bodies have been left in the sand on a beach. What is the first thing you want to know? of course the cause of death. But first, it is important to determine the age and length of the specimen. I think this makes it a bit clearer why it is important.
How it was made?
The methodology section should always be very clear, I will explain this in a general way. And here I also want to mention the importance of places like zoos and dolphinariums, why? because this work would not have been possible without the data that specialists collect year after year.
It is incredible to observe the curiosity towards human beings
Without fail, month after month, the specialists (trainers) take the measurements of all the dolphins that are there. From this, a mathematical analysis can be made that will answer questions such as: how many centimeters does a dolphin grow per year? How does a dolphin grow throughout its life? how do females grow? and the males?
The results
We found some surprises when we saw the results, since the Indo-Pacific dolphin is smaller than the common dolphin, and for this reason we thought that the largest species grew faster, but it was not like that!
Because the growth rates of the smallest species were higher! But .... despite this, it was possible to verify that the common dolphin reached larger sizes, almost 3 meters long.
Ema (a calf) showed a high growth rate
Conclusions ... it is also good to thank!
Although we had good results, it is always good to point out what were the shortcomings and how the study can be improved. In my case, more measurements of the babies were needed, this is mentioned in case someone wants to do a similar study.
That's right, it's always good to say thank you! since there were many people who collaborated in this work, including doctors and other masters in science.
I also take this opportunity to thank @adalger for giving me the opportunity to share knowledge with #amazingnature, I really appreciate it my friend!
Oh... by the way, next step ...The PhD (following in the footsteps of good Adalger😁🔬)
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