A New Irish WhaleAuthor(s): R. F. ScharffSource: The Irish Naturalist, Vol. 28, No. 11/12 (Nov. - Dec., 1919), pp. 130-131Published by: Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25524879 .

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I3o The Irish Naturalist. Nov.-Dec,

A NEW IRISH WHALE.

BY R. F. SCHARFF, B.SC, M.R.I.A.

A report has recently been issued by Dr. S. F. Harmer on the whales and dolphins stranded on the British coasts

during the year 1918.1 In the Irish Naturalist of October

November, 1918, p. 164, reference was made to a previous report on the same subject. We are thus slowly acquiring a knowledge of the species of whales frequenting our shores, and Dr. Harmer is to be congratulated on the success of

his efforts to enlist the services of the receivers of wrecks

and coastguard officiais in elucidating this important natural history problem.

The present report mentions the following species as

having been obtained from Irish localities :?

Dolphin (Delphinus delphis) Barley Cove, Co. Cork,

February 5th, 7 ft. 6 in. ; Bunowen, Co. Galway, August 13th, 6 ft. 11 in. ; Cloghmore Point, Co.

Galway, September 22nd, 7 ft. ; Schull, Co. Cork, October 30th, 7 ft.

Killer or Grampus (Orcinus orea), Castlewray, Co.

Donegal, March 3rd, 11 ft.

Bottle-nosed Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), Bally heigue, Co. Kerry, August 7th, 10 ft. 4 in.

Bottle-no-ED Whale (Hyperoodon rostratus), Bally vaughan, Co. Clare, September 4th, 18 ft. 4 in.

Rorqual (Balaenoptera physalus), Culdaff, Co. Donegal, October 19th, 49 ft.

The most interesting item in the report is the description of True's Beaked Whale (Mesoplodon mirus) a species not hitherto known to occur in Irish waters. The readers

of this journal may remember that the late Prof. Anderson of Galway announced in 1901 that there was in University

College Museum, Galway, a skeleton of a whale, presumably Irish, which he identified with a New Zealand species

1 S. F. Harmer,

" Report on the Cet?cea stranded on the British

Coasts during 1918," London, 1919, British Museum.

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ig?o. Scharff.?A New Irish Whale. 131

known as Mesoplodon Hectori. A few years later a whale

of the same species was cast ashore on one of the Aran

Islands ; and its skull was procured for the Galway Museum.

Prof. Anderson subsequently sent another note2 to this

Journal in which the teeth of this toothed whale were

described.

Meanwhile, as already alluded to in the Irish Naturalist,

1918, p. 164, a Ziphioid whale which had been stranded at Liscannor, County Clare, in 1917, was secured for the British Museum. It was referred by Dr. Harmer to Cuvier's

Whale (Ziphius cavirostris). With the assistance of Prof.

Mangan who succeeded Prof. Anderson, Dr. Harmer has now carefully re-examined the identification of these three

specimens. After due consideration he came to the conclusion

that both he and Prof. Anderson were wrong in their

identification. The bones in the neighbourhood of the

anterior nares differ widely in Ziphius and Mesoplodon and all the three skulls referred to had the characters of

the latter genus. The question thus remained to be decided whether these whales belonged to Mesoplodon Hectori or

to Mesoplodon mirus, the species recently discovered by Prof. True on the coast of Carolina. The two species seem to be very closely allied, but Dr. Harmer now believes all the three Irish specimens to be identical with what he

calls True's Beaked Whale (Mesoplodon mirus). He

promises to give us a more detailed account of them later on.

National Museum, Dublin.

1 R. F. Anderson, "

A Note on a Beaked Whale" (Mesopl?don Hectori

Gray), Irish Naturalist, 1901, p. 117. 2 "

The Teeth in Mesoplodon Hectori," Gray. Irish Naturalist, 1904, p. 126.

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