scholarly journals Forgotten Mediterranean calving grounds of grey and North Atlantic right whales: evidence from Roman archaeological records

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1882) ◽  
pp. 20180961 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana S. L. Rodrigues ◽  
Anne Charpentier ◽  
Darío Bernal-Casasola ◽  
Armelle Gardeisen ◽  
Carlos Nores ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Ecosystem Impacts ◽  
Right Whales ◽  
North Atlantic Right Whales ◽  
Commercial Whaling ◽  
Whaling Industry ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Eastern North Atlantic

Right whales ( Eubalaena glacialis ) were extirpated from the eastern North Atlantic by commercial whaling. Grey whales ( Eschrichtius robustus ) disappeared from the entire North Atlantic in still-mysterious circumstances. Here, we test the hypotheses that both species previously occurred in the Mediterranean Sea, an area not currently considered part of their historical range. We used ancient DNA barcoding and collagen fingerprinting methods to taxonomically identify a rare set of 10 presumed whale bones from Roman and pre-Roman archaeological sites in the Strait of Gibraltar region, plus an additional bone from the Asturian coast. We identified three right whales, and three grey whales, demonstrating that the ranges of both of these species historically encompassed the Gibraltar region, probably including the Mediterranean Sea as calving grounds. Our results significantly extend the known range of the Atlantic grey whale, and suggest that 2000 years ago, right and grey whales were common when compared with other whale species. The disappearance of right and grey whales from the Mediterranean region is likely to have been accompanied by broader ecosystem impacts, including the disappearance of their predators (killer whales) and a reduction in marine primary productivity. The evidence that these two coastal and highly accessible species were present along the shores of the Roman Empire raises the hypothesis that they may have formed the basis of a forgotten whaling industry.

scholarly journals Overview of catch history, historic abundance and distribution of right whales in the western North Atlantic and in Cintra Bay, West Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-192
Author(s):  
Randall R. Reeves
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Long Island ◽  
Right Whale ◽  
The North ◽  
Right Whales ◽  
North Atlantic Right Whales ◽  
History Of ◽  
Stock Depletion ◽  
Eastern North Atlantic

The catch history of the North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) in the western North Atlantic has been studied in a series ofprojects. Data from European archives on early Basque whaling, centred in the Strait of Belle Isle, showed that there were at least a fewthousand right whales in the northern part of the range in the sixteenth century. Data from shore whaling in the eastern United Statessupplemented by British customs data indicated that there were still more than a thousand right whales in the southern part of the range(i.e. south from Nova Scotia) in the late seventeenth century. Right whales were depleted throughout the western North Atlantic by themiddle of the eighteenth century, but small shore whaling enterprises persisted in some areas and pelagic whalers continued to kill rightwhales opportunistically. An increase in alongshore whaling occurred at Long Island (New York) beginning in the 1850s and in North andSouth Carolina, Georgia and northern Florida in the 1870s-1880s. By the start of the twentieth century only a few crews of shore whalersremained active in Long Island and North Carolina, and their whaling efforts were desultory. All evidence points to stock depletion as theprimary reason for the demise of organised whaling for right whales in eastern North America. Recent sightings indicate that some rightwhales travel from the Bay of Fundy and Scotian Shelf far to the north and east, at least occasionally reaching the historic Cape FarewellGround. Areas known to have been used regularly by right whales in the past (e.g. Gulf of St Lawrence, Delaware Bay) are now visitedseasonally by only a few individuals. Recent surveys of Cintra Bay, a historic right whale wintering ground in the eastern North Atlantic,provided no evidence of continued use by right whales.

scholarly journals <i>Syracosphaera noroiticus</i> sp. nov., and <i>S. marginaporata</i> sp. nov., (Syracosphaeraceae, Prymnesiophyta), new coccolithophorids from the Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean

1993 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Knappertsbusch
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
North Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Undescribed Species ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Eastern North Atlantic ◽  
Scanning Electron

Abstract. During scanning electron microscope investigations of living coccolithophorids from the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, two hitherto undescribed species of the genus Syracosphaera Lohmann, 1902 emend. Gaarder (in Gaarder and Heimdal, 1977) were found. The first species, Syracosphaera noroiticus sp. nov., was recorded in the Gulf of Lyons (Mediterranean Sea), and the second, S. marginaporata sp. nov., was found in the eastern North Atlantic.

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