Pygmy Killer Whales Are Off Hawaii's Sugar Beach in Kihei, Maui

Summary: Pygmy killer whales are off Sugar Beach, Kihei, Maui, as health-compromised marine mammals appraising mass-stranding areas or as resident Hawaiian stock.

Abnormal lungs and lymph nodes and empty stomachs suggest that August's stranded pygmy whales were fighting infections, according to results of autopsies conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): MauiNow.com @mauinow, via Facebook Sep. 21, 2019

Pygmy killer whales are, since Sept. 13, 2019, off Sugar Beach, Kihei, Maui, Hawaii, where one dead calf, four subsequently euthanized and six subsequently refloated pygmy killer whales appeared Aug. 29, 2019.

The five pygmy killer whales, misidentified as melon-headed whales despite dark-caped, light-sided pigmentation and paired white-tooth rakes, bore empty stomachs, enlarged lymph nodes and lung abnormalities. Even from 164.04-plus-foot (50-plus-meter) distances from ship bow-wakes, September's six pygmy killer whales, like six end-August mass-stranded survivors, confront climate change; drive-hunts; environmental pollution; and gillnets. Summer-born 2.62-foot (0.8-meter-) long calves develop in familial blowhole-growling, bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) like clicking and whistling, flipper-beating, jaw-snapping, logging, milling, packed-together pygmy killer whale pods.

Pygmy killer whales echolocate at 45 to 157 kilohertz and 197 to 223-decibel intensity levels and embrace 40-kilohertz frequencies in 20 to 120-kilohertz sound frequency ranges.

The scientific identification by John Gray (Feb. 12, 1800-March 7, 1875) in 1874 featured the acute beak and the separated, small frontal and three mid-jaw teeth.

The acute-beaked, narrow-fronted skull gave a 13.5-inch (34.29-centimeter) condyle-beak front length and an 8-inch (20.32) width for the skull front over the pygmy killer whale eyebrows. It has 4.33-inch (10.99-centimeter) and 2.75-inch (6.98-centimeter) beak widths respectively in the ante-orbital notch's front and at two-thirds length and a 5-inch (12.7-centimeter-) long tooth line. It is only since 1954 that live specimens, not just the two skulls that inspired the initial scientific identification, impels pygmy killer whale information and investigations.

Pygmy killer whales juggle asymmetrical skulls; beakless, blunt, rounded heads; black-gray, stout, white-bellied bodies; backward-pointing, high, near-centered, subtriangular-shaped dorsal fins; and flippered, round-tipped, tapering pectoral fins.

Pygmy killer whales, known scientifically as Feresa attenuata (from French feresa, "dolphin" and Latin attenuata, "attenuated [beak]"), keep white chins and lips and white-patched lower-jaw tips.

Underslung jaws, with the smaller right logging one tooth less than the left, lodge 16 to 24 upper and 20 to 26 lower conical, large teeth. Sexually mature female and male pygmy whales maintain grooved skin for excrementary, reproductive and umbilical parts and manifest respective 7.25-plus-foot (2.21-plus-meter) and 7.09-plus-foot (2.16-plus-meter) head-body lengths. Physically mature pygmy killer whales net, during 21-year life cycles, 82.68 to 102.36-inch (210 to 260-centimeter) head-body lengths and 242.51 to 374.79-pound (110 to 170-kilogram) weights.

Pygmy killer whales, as born swimmers, organize into 10 to 50 to even 300-member pods that occur at 370.74 to 9,389.76-foot (113 to 2,862-meter) subsurface depths.

The northern Gulf of Mexico; offshore Hawai'i, O'ahu and Penguin Bank; and the tropical Pacific Ocean present estimated 408, 817 and 38,900-member pygmy killer whale populations.

Pygmy killer whales queue up in closed Caribbean and Mediterranean and open Atlantic, Indian and Pacific waters between 45 degrees North and 35 degrees South latitudes. They range their pods away from other species apart cephalopod, dolphinfish, mollusk, small cetacean, squid and tuna prey; and particularly from predatory humans and larger sharks. They even stay away from related false killer (Pseudorca crassidens), killer (Orcinus orca), melon-headed (Peponocephala electra) and pilot long-finned (Globicephala melaena) and short-finned (G. macrorhynchus) whales.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tended August's five casualties and six survivors and now tracks September's six healthy island-trekking or traumatized deathplace-seeking pygmy killer whales.

pygmy killer whales (Feresa attenuata); Mariana Islands, off Guam; photo credit: Adam Ü, collected under NMFS permit 15240, July 2013: NOAA / NMFS/ Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Blog July 8, 2013, via NOAA Photo Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Abnormal lungs and lymph nodes and empty stomachs suggest that August's stranded pygmy whales were fighting infections, according to results of autopsies conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): MauiNow.com @mauinow, via Facebook Sep. 21, 2019, @ https://www.facebook.com/mauinow/posts/1015887172733486

pygmy killer whales (Feresa attenuata); Mariana Islands, off Guam; photo credit: Adam Ü, collected under NMFS permit 15240, July 2013: NOAA / NMFS/ Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Blog July 8, 2013, via NOAA Photo Library @ https://photolib.noaa.gov/Collections/NOAAs-Ark/Other/emodule/721/eitem/31079

For further information:

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