Northern Bottlenose Whale Fast Facts
- Scientific name: Hyperoodon ampullatus (roughly translates to "excessively toothed bottle/flask")
- IUCN conservation status: Data deficient
- One of two species of bottlenose whale (the other is the southern bottlenose whale)
- Have two teeth in their bottom jaw, but these teeth only emerge in males
- The largest member of the beaked whale family
The Whitehead Lab and Northern Bottlenose Whales
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Since 1988, the Whitehead Lab northern bottlenose whale research program has collected acoustic, visual, and photographic data focused on the endangered Scotian Shelf population residing in the area of the Gully submarine canyon, a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the northwest Atlantic. Our long term research program has been acknowledged as contributing vital information to the conservation and management of the Gully MPA and northern bottlenose whales in Canada. Previous Whitehead Lab projects on northern bottlenose whales have focused on topics such as genetic diversity, population structure, foraging ecology, ranging behavior, vocal communication, social organization, and diving behavior.
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Current Projects
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Dr. Dara Orbach (Postdoctoral Fellow): I am broadly interested in the behavioural patterns of cetaceans, which have not been well-documented for most species of beaked whales. The population of northern bottlenose whales in the Gully provide a unique opportunity to assess sex-specific behavioural and surface acoustic patterns because there is evident sexual dimorphism amongst adults and because animals are comparatively non-evasive of vessels. My research explores ecological and evolutionary selection pressures.
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Laura Joan Feyrer (Ph.D. Student): In my doctoral research I propose to explore how the spatial patterns in whale habitat use influence northern bottlenose whale population dynamics. Specifically I will assess what aspect of metapopulation dynamics might influence or determine the distinctiveness of northern bottlenose whale population units and the risks to the persistence of these endangered populations in the future. |
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Karolyn Long (Undergraduate Honours Student): Coming soon! Madison Stewart (Undergraduate Honours Student): Using a catalogue of photos from 1988 to 2017, I will be using photo ID of dorsal fins to estimate the population size of Northern bottlenose whales in the Scotian Shelf. By comparing to a smaller and newly discovered population of Northern bottlenose whales in Newfoundland, the project also has implications for population connectivity between the two sites.
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