A major breeding site of whales Omura discovered off Madagascar’s northwest coast
From 2007 to 2014, a team of marine biologists led several expeditions to the northwest coast of the Big Island in Nosy-Be region and the peninsula of Nosy Irania to assess cetacean populations.
These biologists were surprised to discover a population of Omura whales never identified in this region before and rather known by some stranded specimens in the western Indian Ocean and the Pacific. Their work was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
The Omura whale is a whale species identified in 2003 by three Japanese scientists and named in honor of Hideo Omura cétologue Japanese.
This whale is quite small, measuring 7 to 11 meters (30 meters against the blue whale).
Omura whales can be identified by their white right jaw and left black jaw
“We report, to our knowledge, the first genetically confirmed study of Omura whales in northwest Madagascar” says Salvator Cerchio, researcher for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York, member of the expedition. Biologists were first surprised by their discovery. “When we have clearly seen that the right jaw was white and that the left was black, we knew we were dealing with them.Sampling was conducted on 18 adult individuals.
The genetic study has established that it was a small sedentary population. The observation of four mothers with small showed that the site was used for breeding.
A new expedition led by Salvator Cerchio and scientists at the New England Aquarium, found a huge Omura whale group off Madagascar west coast. In total, 80 whales that wandered off the island, including some duets mother / calf that had been seen last winter.
During their observations, the scientists were able to collect a lot of information, including the sounds the whales emit. “They sing, which is in itself a very exciting discovery. The song they sing is very simple but interesting”, said Salvatore Cerchio. The fact that the researchers observed several calves is also a sign that it is, for them, a breeding ground.
