The most serious threat to the status of harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) is incidental mortalities caused by entanglement in fishing gear. As part of an ongoing study to evaluate the…
Current plans to utilise German offshore waters as sites for windmill parks as well as ongoing investigation of potential areas to implement Natura 2000 have led to an increased research…
Morphology of the modern cetaceans represents the results of adaptation of the ancestral terrestrial mammals to aquatic life through their evolutional processes. Some of the primitive fossil cetaceans are known…
Stranded harbour porpoises were analysed to investigate differences in stranding patterns along the North and Baltic Sea coasts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. A total of 1,015 stranded or bycaught harbour porpoises…
Studies concerning the echolocation behaviour of odontocetes focus mainly on target detection and discrimination, either in stationary animals or in animals approaching a specific target. We present the first data…
Boat-based acoustic and visual surveys for harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) were conducted during the summers of 2001 and 2002 in order to investigate their distribution and relative abundance in the…
As the sole freshwater subspecies of finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides), the Yangtze finless porpoise (N. p. asiaeorientalis) lives only in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and…
The effect of post-mortem time (0-48 hours) on retinoid concentrations in the blubber and liver of harbour porpoises under natural conditions is investigated to assess the stability of samples collected…
Haborophocoena toyoshimai (family Phocoenidae), from the early Pliocene Mochikubetsu Formation in northwestern Hokkaido, Japan, is a new genus and species of porpoise. The holotype is an incomplete skull, tympanoperiotic, mandible,…
Historical data (1965-2000) of temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen (0 and 50m) were analyzed to understand the seasonal variability of the oceanographic conditions associated to the distribution of P. spinipinnis…