Dear colleagues, The Namibian Dolphin Project had the privilege of seeing a Pacific gray whale off the coast of Namibia (SE Atlantic) in 2013, at which point we managed to collect a biopsy from it. It took a while to get it processed it but happily Rus Hoelzel and Fatih Sarigol at Durham University in the UK managed to do this using genomic methods - revealing that the animal's most likely source population was the endangered Western Gray Whale population, known to feed off Sakhalin Island, Russia...making this the longest known movement of any mammal.
The paper is available on our all author's researchgate profiles: Hoezel AR, F Sarigol, T Gridley, SH Elwen. (*2021*). Natal origin of Namibian gray whale reveals new distance record for in-water migration. Biol. Lett. 17: 20210136. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0136 and if reading genetic methods isn't your thing - we made a YouTube Video abstract of the paper as well available here: https://youtu.be/aKXZbqaXPiU Many thanks :) Simon Elwen -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Simon Elwen Ph.D. - Director Sea Search Research & Conservation <http://www.seasearch.co.za> and the Namibian Dolphin Project <http://www.namibiandolphinproject.org> Research Associate: Department of Zoology and Botany - Stellenbosch University <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Virus-free. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
_______________________________________________ MARMAM mailing list MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam