Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1991, Page 44

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STUDIES ON THE LONG-FINNED PILOT WHALE
Fig. 9. Total body weight at length for pilot whale foet-
us. N=19.
The largest foetus found in this material
was 190cm, and it was longer than the short-
est newborn of 180cm. In Desportes (1983)
the birth length was calculated at 171cm for
the French stranded pilot whales. This
material seems to indicate that newborn pi-
lot whales in the Faroes are a little larger.
There would appear to be a tendency for
the newborn females to be shorter at birth
than the males, since 8 females and only 4
males measured shorter than 200cm (Fig. 3).
Shorter female newborns were indicated in
Sergeant’s material (1962: Fig. 10, p. 16) and
Kock’s (1956: 66).
Table 4. Sex ratio of long-finned pilot whales off the Faroes Islands.
Locality Date Size of School Males No. Females No. %
Hvalba 28/08/78 317 114 203 64.0
Tórshavn 20/10/78 73 26 47 64.4
Tórshavn 02/11/78 48 22 26 54.2
Tórshavn 28/08/79 121 50 71 58.7
Tórshavn 07/09/83 95 37 58 61.1
Vestmanna 17/07/84 73 34 39 53.4
Fuglafjørður 21/08/84 54 20 34 63.0
Klaksvík 04/09/84 24 9 15 62.5
Tórshavn 18/09/84 31 17 14 45.2
Klaksvík 29/01/85 95 42 53 55.8
931 371 560 58.2 i 1.8
Table 5.
Sex ratio of foetus, young, sub-adult and adult pilot whales off the Faroe Islands. The length
borders between sub-adults and adults were fixed at 375 cm for females, and 480 cm for
males. N = 585.
Sex Foetus Sub-adult Adult
No. % No. °7o No. °7o
Female 29 50 97 40 207 72
Male 29 50 144 60 79 28