Long-finned pilot whales are highly social odontocetes found in temperate and subpolar regions. This species is particularly known for its interaction with fisheries as well as its mass strandings. Recent tagging work has provided some information about pilot whales in the wild but, even though they have been successfully kept in captivity, little is known about their sensory capabilities. This...

This paper describes a new multidisciplinary computational study undertaken to model the flight trajectories and the free-flight aerodynamics of both a finned projectile at supersonic velocities and a spinning projectile at subsonic speeds with and without aerodynamic flow-control. Actual flight trajectories are computed using an advanced coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD)/rigid body dy...

Most aquatic vertebrates use suction to capture food, relying on rapid expansion of the mouth cavity to accelerate water and food into the mouth. In ray-finned fishes, mouth expansion is both fast and forceful, and therefore requires considerable power. However, the cranial muscles of these fishes are relatively small and may not be able to produce enough power for suction expansion. The axial ...

Cytological and organismal characteristics associated with cellular DNA content underpin most adaptionist interpretations of genome size variation. Since fishes are the only group of vertebrate for which relationships between genome size and key cellular parameters are uncertain, the cytological correlates of genome size were examined in this group. The cell and nuclear areas of erythrocytes sh...

Using comparative phylogenetic analysis, we analyzed the evolution of male alternative reproductive tactics (MARTs) in ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii). Numerous independent origins for each type of MART (involving sneaker males, female mimics, pirates, and satellite males) indicate that these behaviors have been highly labile across actinopterygiian evolution, consistent with a previous noti...

Abstract This paper investigates the response of finned piles in sand subjected to static lateral load through laboratory tests and full-scale field tests. Firstly, model were carried out on free headed single different shaft diameters with without fins explore performance under loading. The results obtained from monotonic loading three series combination pile presented. effect improving stiffn...

Comparative genomics has shown that ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii) contain more copies of many genes than other vertebrates. A large number of these additional genes appear to have been produced during a genome duplication event that occurred early during the evolution of Actinopterygii (i.e. before the teleost radiation). In addition to this ancient genome duplication event, many lineages wi...

The adult morphology of the tail varies greatly among extant fishes despite sharing both ontogenetic similarities and the functional need to propel the body through a fluid medium. Both sharks (Chondrichthyes) and ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) control caudal fin musculature independently of axial body myomere activity to modify the stiffness and shape of their tails. For example, sharks an...

Long-finned pilot whales Globicephala melas are a commonly encountered species in the Mediterranean Sea. In 2006−2007, an outbreak of the dolphin morbillivirus in the Western Mediterranean resulted in increased mortality of this species. The aim of this study was to determine whether survival rates differed between clusters of Spanish Medi terranean pilot whales, and how the epizootic in fluenc...