Mesoplodon europaeusGervais's beaked whale

Ge­o­graphic Range

Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus is known only from strand­ings, so the known dis­tri­b­u­tion may be af­fected by ocean cur­rents and ef­forts in North Amer­ica to re­trieve stranded an­i­mals. Recorded from as far north as New York and as far south as Trinidad, Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus is prob­a­bly the most abun­dant mem­ber of its genus in the Gulf of Mex­ico. Records from the east­ern side of the At­lantic are more spotty, rang­ing from Ire­land to Guinea Bis­sau in Africa. A re­la­tion­ship has been sug­gested be­tween water tem­per­a­ture and prey species dis­tri­b­u­tion, thus af­fect­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of dif­fer­ent Meso­plodon species.

(McLeod, 2000a; Robineau and Vely, 1993)

Habi­tat

Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus lives in warm to trop­i­cal pelagic wa­ters.

(Cetacea, 2001; De­brot and Bar­ros, 1992)

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The col­oration of Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus is black or dark grey on the back fad­ing to a lighter gray on the sides and belly. For a cetacean, the head is small with re­spect to total body size. The tails of ziphi­ids (beaked whales) are un­usual among cetaceans in hav­ing no notch in the cen­ter of the fluke. Some stranded spec­i­mens, par­tic­u­larly adult males, have many scars on their bod­ies, pre­sum­ably from sharks and fight­ing be­tween males.

Nearly all ziphi­ids have a greatly re­duced num­ber of teeth, and Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus has only two in the lower jaw. These two teeth are are vis­i­ble out­side the mouth as small “tusks” near the front of the ros­trum. Con­cho­derma, stalked bar­na­cles, often at­tach them­selves to these teeth. Tusk shape varies be­tween species and it has been pro­posed that these dif­fer­ence evolved in order to aid the an­i­mals in dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing their own species, as Meso­plodon species are oth­er­wise very sim­i­lar in ap­pear­ance. It is ex­tremely dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish the sim­i­lar-look­ing species of this genus by sight­ings, and some­times even when using the di­ag­nos­tic char­ac­ters of the skull.

(Lynn and Ross, 1992; Mar­tin et al, 1990; McLeod, 2000b; Robineau and Vely, 1993; Vaughn et al, 2000; Pit­man, 2001)

  • Range mass
    1200 + (high) kg
    lb
  • Range length
    4 to 5.2 m
    13.12 to 17.06 ft

Re­pro­duc­tion

Very lit­tle in­for­ma­tion is avail­able, but fe­males are thought to be sex­u­ally ma­ture by the time they reach 4.5 m size.

(Mar­tin et al, 1990; Poss, 1998; Pit­man, 2001)

  • Key Reproductive Features
  • gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
  • sexual
  • viviparous

As with all cetaceans, the young are nec­es­sar­ily pre­co­cial at birth and Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus are about 2.1 m long at birth.

  • Parental Investment
  • precocial
  • pre-fertilization
    • provisioning
    • protecting
      • female
  • pre-hatching/birth
    • provisioning
      • female
    • protecting
      • female
  • pre-weaning/fledging
    • provisioning
      • female
    • protecting
      • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Ger­vais' beaked whale is known to live to at least 27 years old in the wild.

(Pit­man, 2001)

  • Range lifespan
    Status: wild
    27 (high) years
  • Average lifespan
    Status: captivity
    48 years
    AnAge

Be­hav­ior

This species tend to live in small groups or as cou­ples. From scar­ring on stranded spec­i­mens, it is as­sumed that in­ter­spe­cific fight­ing oc­curs at least among adult males.

(The Azorean Whale Watch­ing Base, 2000; De­brot and Bar­ros, 1992)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Food Habits

From stom­ach con­tents of stranded M. eu­ropaeus it is known that they eat pri­mar­ily squid (Oc­topo­teuthis spp., Mastig­o­teuthis spp. and Tao­nius spp.), deep sea shrimp(Neog­nathophau­sia in­gens) and mesopelagic viper fish (Chaulio­dus sloani and Ne­siarchus na­su­tus). The stom­ach is di­vided into mul­ti­ple cham­bers. The pur­pose of this is un­de­ter­mined, as squid and fish are eas­ily di­gested, as op­posed to the tough ma­te­r­ial eaten by most an­i­mals with such stom­ach mor­phol­ogy.

(Vaughn et al, 2000; De­brot and Bar­ros, 1992; Mar­tin et al, 1990)

  • Animal Foods
  • fish
  • mollusks
  • aquatic crustaceans

Pre­da­tion

From dis­tinc­tive scars on some stranded beaked whale spec­i­mens it is known that cookie-cut­ter sharks do at­tack M. eu­ropaeus. The whale prob­a­bly uses its tusks to pro­tect it­self from this and other preda­tors, as well as for in­ter­spe­cific fight­ing.

(Pit­man, 2001)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Con­trib­u­tors

Tawny Seaton (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Bret We­in­stein (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Glossary

Atlantic Ocean

the body of water between Africa, Europe, the southern ocean (above 60 degrees south latitude), and the western hemisphere. It is the second largest ocean in the world after the Pacific Ocean.

World Map

bilateral symmetry

having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.

carnivore

an animal that mainly eats meat

chemical

uses smells or other chemicals to communicate

endothermic

animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.

molluscivore

eats mollusks, members of Phylum Mollusca

motile

having the capacity to move from one place to another.

native range

the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.

pelagic

An aquatic biome consisting of the open ocean, far from land, does not include sea bottom (benthic zone).

piscivore

an animal that mainly eats fish

sexual

reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female

social

associates with others of its species; forms social groups.

tactile

uses touch to communicate

viviparous

reproduction in which fertilization and development take place within the female body and the developing embryo derives nourishment from the female.

young precocial

young are relatively well-developed when born

Ref­er­ences

2001. "Aus­tralian Mu­seum On­line: Viper Fish, *Chaulio­dus sloani* Bloch & Schnei­der, 1801" (On-line). Ac­cessed Sept 17, 2001 at http://​www.​amonline.​net.​au/​fishes/​fishfacts/​fish/​csloani.​htm.

2001. "Cetacea: *Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus* (Ger­vais' Beaked Whale)" (On-line). Ac­cessed Sept 17, 2001 at http://​www.​cetacea.​org/​gervais.​htm.

2000. "The Azorean Whale Watch­ing Base tech­ni­cal file: *Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus* - Ger­vais beaked whale" (On-line). Ac­cessed Sept 22, 2001 at http://​www.​espacotalassa.​com/​gb/​16_​species/​docs/​m_​europaeus.​htm.

De­brot, A., N. Bar­ros. 1992. Notes on a Ger­vais' beaked whale *Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus*, and a dwarf sperm whale, *Kogia simus*, stranded in Cu­ra­cao, Nether­lands An­tilles. Ma­rine Mam­mal Sci­ence, 8, No. 2: 172-178.

Lynn, S., D. Reiss. 1992. Pulse se­quence and whis­tle pro­duc­tion by two cap­tive beaked whales, *Meso­plodon* species. Ma­rine Mam­mal Sci­ence, 8, No. 3: 299-305.

Mar­tin, V., R. Vonk, S. Es­corza, R. Mon­tero. 1990. Records of Ger­vais' beaked whale *Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus* on the Ca­nary Is­lands. Pro­ceed­ings of the Fourth An­nual Con­fer­ence of the Eu­ro­pean Cetacean So­ci­ety, 2-4 March 1990: 95.

McLeod, C. 2000a. Re­view of the dis­tri­b­u­tion of *Meso­plodon* species (Order Cetacea, fam­ily Ziphi­idae) in the North At­lantic. Mam­mal Re­view, 30, No. 1: 1-8.

McLeod, C. 2000b. Species recog­ni­tion as a pos­si­ble func­tion for vari­a­tions in po­si­tion and shape of the sex­u­ally di­mor­phic tusks of *Meso­plodon* whales. Evo­lu­tion, 54, No. 6: 2171-2173.

Pit­man, R. 2001. "Meso­plodont whales". Pp. 738-742 in W Per­rin, B Wur­sig, J Thewis­sen, eds. "En­cy­clo­pe­dia of Ma­rine Mam­mals". San Diego: Aca­d­e­mic Press.

Poss, S. 1998. "Species at risk in the Gulf of Mex­ico ecosys­tem." (On-line). Ac­cessed Sept 22, 2001 at http://​lionfish.​ims.​usm.​edu/​~musweb/endanger.​html.

Robineau, D., M. Vely. 1993. Strand­ing of a spec­i­men of Ger­vais' beaked whale (*Meso­plodon eu­ropaeus*) on the coast of West Africa (Mau­ri­ta­nia). Ma­rine Mam­mal Sci­ence, 9, No. 4: 438-440.

Vaughn, T., J. Ryan, N. Czaplewski. 2000. Mam­mal­ogy. Or­lando: Sun­ders Col­lege Pub­lish­ing.