Records of Kogia breviceps from Texas, with Remarks on Movements and Distribution

Abstract

Kogia breviceps (Blainville), the pygmy sperm whale, has been recorded repeatedly from the Atlantic Coast of North America (Hobbs, 1885; True, 1885; Allen, 1941, and papers cited therein; Ulmer, 1941; Enders, 1942; Brimley, 1946; Moore, 1953), but to date the only published report from the Gulf of Mexico is that of Moore (1953: 129), based on an adult that washed ashore in November, 1949, on St. Petersburg Beach, Pinellas County, Florida, and there gave birth to a calf. First specimen from Texas .—Almost a year earlier, on December 27, 1948, another adult female (PL I, Upper and Middle) was stranded near the north end of Mustang Island, Nueces County, Texas, a mile south of the Aransas Pass jetties. It was examined while fresh (with blood draining from its mouth) by staff members of the Institute of Marine Science, in the absence of the first author. Photographs were taken and the head was buried on the Institute grounds, but these circumstances were not reported, because the specimen was thought to be a blackfish. The photographs were later shown to Raymond M. Gilmore, who saw that they represented the rare pygmy sperm whale, and to Hubbs, after the second specimen had come to light in Texas. Information on the buried head enabled Gunter to disinter the skull (PL II), minus the teeth and the lower jaw. Certain differences seem to be indicated when the proportional measurements of the Mustang Island specimen (Table 1) are compared (Table 2) with those of Hubbs (1951: 507), for a California specimen, and of Enders (1942, Fig. 2) for a New Jersey specimen. Not many measurements are similar, because standardized criteria have not yet been developed, but seven measurements were the same or can be estimated with …