Cetacean Strandings and Museum Collections: A Focus on Sicily Island Crossroads for Mediterranean Species

Mass cetacean strandings-a plea for empiricism.

The recent series of mass cetacean strandings in the stranding-prone regions of Australia and New Zealand (BBC News 2004) and the ensuing speculation regarding their cause demonstrate that debates surrounding this phenomenon continue to be of issue. As most interested in these debates are aware, hypotheses addressing their causes range from the more biologically plausible— including climate and...

Cetacean strandings in Costa Rica (1966-1999).

Cetacean strandings in Costa Rica are reported for a period of 33 years, with a total of 35 strandings, 13 species and 247 individuals involved. The vast majority of documented strandings occurred on the Pacific coast and correspond to single individuals (32 and 28 strandings respectively). The highest stranding number was in the period from 1990 to 1999 (n = 24). Physeter catodon (cachalot or ...

Cetacean Strandings Investigation: England and Wales and Poseidon Database

Climate-driven environmental changes around 8,200 years ago favoured increases in cetacean strandings and Mediterranean hunter-gatherers exploited them

Cetacean mass strandings occur regularly worldwide, yet the compounded effects of natural and anthropogenic factors often complicate our understanding of these phenomena. Evidence of past stranding episodes may, thus, be essential to establish the potential influence of climate change. Investigations on bones from the site of Grotta dell'Uzzo in North West Sicily (Italy) show that the rapid cli...

Fossil whale barnacles from the lower Pleistocene of Sicily shed light on the coeval Mediterranean cetacean fauna

We report on three shells of whale barnacle (Cirripedia: Coronulidae) collected from Pleistocene shallow-marine deposits exposed at Cinisi (northwestern Sicily, southern Italy). These specimens are identified as belonging to the extinct species Coronula bifida BRONN, 1831. Calcareous nannoplankton analysis of the sediment hosting the coronulid remains places the time of deposition between 1.93 ...