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PILOT WHALE |
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SCIENTIFIC
NAME
- Globicephala from the latin globus "sphere"
and from the greek kephalé "head",
melas from the greek "black"; so "spherical black head".
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FAMILY
- Delphinidae
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| DIMENSIONS
- The
female is smaller of the male, medium length 6 mt, maximum 7.5 mt, the
maximum weight 2 t. |
| ASPECT
- Body a lot lengthened; spherical head;
large melon and rounded and rostrum hardly visible; small dorsal
fin, with base bigger of the height, rounded apex and concave
posterior margin, in advanced position; pectoral fins lengthened
and with a scythe shape; caudal peduncle with advanced margin a lot convex. |
| SKIN
and COLORATION - Black or tawny, the young clear
brown, white speck on the abdomen, shadings of gray sometimes
behind the dorsal fin and to sides of the eyes. |
| LONGEVITY
- Some
experts assume until 50 years.
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| REPRODUCTION
- They reproduce towards
April-june with a gestation of approximately 15 months. Often the birth is
assisted from the members of the shoal. To the birth the puppy
measure approximately 1.8 mt and hung approximately 100 Kg. |
| TEETH
- Medium 40, conical ones and strong, until 1.5 cm of diameter. |
| BREATH
- Small and little visible. |
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SOUNDS
- Three types of emissions:
1°
click, used emissions of short duration for the biosonar.
2° it
hisses modulated.
3° sounds to impulses.
The emissions of which to
number 2 and 3 they constitute the dictionary of the Pilot whale, used
in order to communicate. Every copy seems to possess hisses that marks them.
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| FEEDING
- The diet of the Pilot whale is mostly
composed from squids but sometimes also fish (Clears, eels etc.) (Vd. (Vd.
Feeding). |
| HABITAT
- Pelagic Cetacean loves deep and moderated
waters or cold ones, not the tropical ones. |
| SWIM
- It's a cetacean that to the
occurrence, like all the dolphins, is able to be very fast (35 Km/h
- 19 nodes) and agile, but
normally swims enough slowly in surface with constant respiratory
emersions, in very compact groups. Able of remarkable
immersions (-600 mt) beginning which often extracts the tail from the
water. Sometimes they extract the head from the water for guardarsi
round (spyhopping). |
| TEETH
- They Carry out enough spectacular jumps with the total emersion of the body from the water and dive
of head e and on
the back. |
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MIGRATIONS
- They make seasonal movements not Complete migrations. In the Mediterranean from the zone of Gibilterra in which
they are present all the year they are moved in summer towards the
zones that they preprefer like the Ligurian sea
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SOCIALITY
- They form branches of several tens of individuals sometimes also hundred,
the females never abandon the branch, the males instead seem
that occasionally are coupled with females of various branches,
the high sociality at the same time demonstrate in breast-feeding
from part more females.
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TEMPERAMENT
- Much confiding and onlooker let himself to be
easy taken from the panic (as demonstrates the beachings), does
not have the common habit as the others dolphins of let himself be
transported from the bow wave of the boats, but often it approach
the same boats or the persons.
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DANGER
and PREDATORY
- No assessed predator, sometimes victim of collectives beachings
given the strong tie of branch.
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SPECIES
DIFFUSION
- They don't attend tropical seas so exist two separated populations in every. In the Mediterranean rather common to the West (
Ligurian sea).
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