My co-authors and I are pleased to announce the publication of our new paper on the digestion process of ingested prey in the dolphin stomach.
Digestion Process of Ingesta in Forestomach of Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops aduncus). Hiroshi Ohizumi, Makiko Koide, Hiroko Kusakabe, Keiichi Ueda, Makio Yanagisawa and Haruka Koga. Journal of the School of Marine Science and Technology, Tokai University. 17, pp 1-9. (2019) http://sdb01.scc.u-tokai.ac.jp/laec-s/mst/kiyou/bull/index.html (You can see the English menu on the page top right. Full text PDF in English is available.) Abstract We investigated the relationship between elapsed time and the process of food digestion in the forestomach and the estimated time for stomach evacuation in an Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin. The digestion process was observed with a gastroscope to reveal the characteristic progress of digestion of different prey species. Single flying fish (approximately 100 g) and mackerel (approximately 200 g) were similarly digested, despite the difference in their size. Single squid (approximately 100 g) was digested faster than similar sized flying fish. The weight of stomach contents and the digestion time to evacuation showed an apparent positive relationship, and a full stomach content of flying fish was digested to the point of evacuation within approximately 10 hours of ingestion. Since it is an experimental result using only one dolphin, it cannot be immediately applied to the stomach content analysis of wild individuals, but it is considered that the difference in digestion time! among prey species can be compared. Best regards, Hiroshi Ohizumi ohiz...@scc.u-tokai.ac.jp Ph.D. Tokai University, Japan. _______________________________________________ MARMAM mailing list MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam
