Futurismo Biologists TeamA morning full of dolphins! Today we were really lucky, we sighted three species of dolphins!
At first, we had to travel a little bit far away, close to Vila Franca islet, but there we found a huge group of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), one of the resident species! They were really curious, and spent a lot of time bow-riding in front of our catamaran. Did you know that every individual is different? Each one has their own scars, pigmentation, shape of the fin, … all these characteristics help us identify them individually. By taking photos of them, we can use a technique called Photo-identification, which allows us to identify the different individuals of a group of dolphins, and together with data taken at the time of those pictures, such as location, we can also identify residence patterns. For example, today we recognized “Halfie”, a dolphin first seen in 2018, really easy to identify since it only has half of the fluke!
After this amazing encounter, we moved to another area where we found a group of Striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba), a migratory species that we can find here in the summer! It was a big group, traveling together, jumping a lot and very fast!
On the way back, a last surprise was waiting for us, a group of common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), another resident species! So we stopped to enjoy them a little bit more just before returning to Ponta Delgada.
Let’s see what is waiting for us tomorrow!
Futurismo Biologists Team
Sandrina Rodrigues
