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Globicephala melas (long-finned pilot whale)

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Image credit: Garth Mix, GMIX Designs

Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Scientific Name Globicephala melas
Taxonomic Rank Species
Original Description (Traill, 1809)(Traill, 1809)
Scientific Synonyms (since 1950)
Common Name
long-finned pilot whale
All Common Names English: long-finned pilot whale
French: globicéphale noir de l'Atlantique
Taxonomic Parents Kingdom: Animalia
  Phylum: Chordata
    Subphylum: Vertebrata
      Class: Mammalia
        Subclass: Theria
          Infraclass: Eutheria
            Order: Cetacea
              Suborder: Odontoceti
                Family: Delphinidae
                  Genus: Globicephala
Taxonomic Children Subspecies: Globicephala melas edwardii
Subspecies: Globicephala melas melas
Taxonomic # 552461
Taxonomic data is courtesy of the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS)

Physical Description / Field Identification

Pilot whales are large, with bulbous heads, dramatically upsloping mouthlines, and extremely short or non-existent beaks. The head is globose, with an upsloping mouthline. The flippers are extremely long (up to 1/4 of the body length) and slender, with pointed tips and an angled leading edge that forms an "elbow." The dorsal fin is about 1/3 of the way back from the snout tip, and is low, wide-based, and falcate. The tail stock is deepened (remaining more-or-less uniform in height from the saddle patch to just ahead of the flukes). Males have larger, more bulbous heads, thicker dorsal fins, and deeper tail stocks.

Predominantly dark gray to black, pilot whales have a white to light gray anchor-shaped patch on the chest, a light gray post-dorsal fin saddle, and light gray "eyebrow" streaks. Inside the mouth are 8-13 pairs of sharp, pointed teeth in each jaw. Newborns are 1.7-1.8 m long. Adults reach 6.7 m (males) and 5.7 m (females) in length. Bulls reach weights of 2000 kg.


Can be Confused With

In some temperate waters (for example, the waters around Cape Hatteras, NC), long-finned and short-finned pilot whales overlap in distribution. In these areas, the two species are extremely difficult to distinguish at sea. Tooth counts and relative flipper lengths (both of which are generally not useful in at sea sightings) are the only reliable means of separating the two. In the lower latitude areas of its range, the long-finned pilot whale can be confused with false killer whales or, less likely, pygmy killer and melon-headed whales; however, the differences in head shape and dorsal fin shape and position should permit correct identification.

Distribution

Range:Temperate, sub-polar

The long-finned pilot whale is widely distributed in the temperate waters of the world, with two subspecies separated from each other by tropical waters G.m.edwardii in the south and G.m.melas in the north. The long-finned pilot whale is widely distributed in temperate waters, with the exception of the North Pacific. Long-finned pilot whales prefer areas of high relief, submerged banks, and the edge of the continental shelf.

North Atlantic– In the eastern North Atlantic, long-finned pilot whales inhabit the Barents Sea and the coast of Norway; the waters surrounding the Faeroe Islands and British Isles; the west coasts of France and Spain; and the waters of the Azores Islands, Madeira Island, and Mauritania. In the western North Atlantic, pilot whales occupy the coasts of Iceland and Greenland; along the continental shelf and coast of North America including the coast of Newfoundland, Georges Bank, the Gulf of Maine; and south to Cape Hatteras, with rare sightings further south. From Cape Hatteras north to Georges Bank, long-finned pilot whale sightings are concentrated between the 100- and 2000-m contours, although sightings have occurred in shallow and deep ocean waters as well.

Mediterranean Sea– In the Mediterranean Sea, long-finned pilot whales appear in the coastal waters of Spain, France, and the west coast of Italy, with local concentrations in the Alboran and Ligurian Seas.

Southern Oceans– The long-finned pilot whale is circumglobal in the southern hemisphere, from the east coast of South America, the coast of South Africa, the southern coast of Australia, Great Barrier Island in New Zealand, and the Chilean coast. The long-finned pilot whale’s range extends as far south as the Antarctic Convergence.

Links to Distribution Map at Sea Around Us Project

Map of OBIS-SEAMAP Data Points

Existing observations across multiple datasets within OBIS-SEAMAP are indicated with red points.
Species distributions (pink background polygon if present) were digitized by Kristin Kaschner as part of the Sea Around Us Project predominantly from Jefferson et al (1993).

Reference
Jefferson, T.A., S. Leatherwood, and M.A. Webber. 1993. FAO species identification guide. Marine mammals of the world. Rome, FAO. 1993.320. p. 587 figs.

Ecology and Behavior

Habit:Shelf/slope

Pilot whales are highly social; they are generally found in pods of about 20-100, but some groups contain over 1000. Based on photo-identification and genetic work, researchers believe pilot whales live in relatively stable pods like those of killer whales, and not in the fluid groups characteristic of many smaller dolphins. The mating system is hypothesized to be polygynous; this is consistent with the observed sexual dimorphism and adult sex ratio. Breeding can apparently occur at any time of the year, but peaks occur in summer in both hemispheres.

Pilot whales are apparently deep divers. Groups often forage in broad ranks, sometimes with other species. Although they sometimes are aerially active, pilot whales are often seen rafting in groups at the surface, apparently resting. This is one of the species involved in mass strandings. Strandings are fairly frequent, for instance, on Cape Cod (Massachusetts, USA) beaches from October to January. Their tight social structure also makes pilot whales vulnerable to herding, and whalers take advantage of this trait in drive fisheries off Newfoundland, the Faeroe Islands, and elsewhere.


Feeding and Prey

Broad diet dominated by:Cephalopods>fish

Long-finned pilot whales are primarily squid eaters, but will eat small fish as well.

Feeding mode:Sucking

The large tongue of the long-finned pilot whale is depressed and retracted during feeding, causing negative intraoral pressure during capture.

Prey species include:

Cephalopods:Gonatus fabricii, Illex illecebrosus, Loligo pealei, Todarodes sagittatus, Gonatus sp., Brachioteuthis sp., Sepiola sp., Teuthowenia megalops, Histioteuthis sp., Eledone cirrhosa, Histioteuthis reversa, Chiroteuthis imperator, Chiroteuthis veranyi, Selenoteuthis scintillans, Megalocranchia sp., Rossia macrosoma, Mastigoteuthis sp., Ommastrephes sp., Ommastrephes bartramii, Onychoteuthidae

Other invertebrates: Aphrodite aculeata, Nereis sp., Yoldiella sp., Tyblomangelia nivalis, Pandulus montagui, Munida tenuimana

Fish: Gadus morhua, Merliccius sp., Reinhardtius hippoglossoides, Scomber scombrus, Argentina silus, Micromesistius poutassou, Gadiculus argenteus, Trisopterus sp., Coryphaenoides sp., Lycodes sp., Brosme brosme, Ammodytes sp., Merlangius merlangius, Glyptocephalus cynoglossus, Melanogrammus aeglefinus, Trichiuridae, Caranx trachurus, Clupea harengus, Merluccius bilinearis, Urophysis sp., Squalus acanthias


Threats and Status

Main threats include:

Harvest

Fisheries bycatch

Entanglement in debris/fishing gear

Noise pollution

Heavy metal and organochlorine pollution

Conservation status:

The pilot whale is not listed as endangered or threatened by either the IUCN or the U.S. government. Long-finned pilot whales have been taken directly in several large scale drive fisheries in the North Atlantic Ocean. The most famous of these occurred historically in Newfoundland, and another one still occurs in the Faeroe Islands. Other such drive fisheries used to occur in the USA (Cape Cod), Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and Scotland (Orkney and Hebrides Islands).

In addition, there are incidental catches in several fisheries, especially trawls, driftnets, and longlines. Accumulation of heavy metals, PCB, and DDT in the tissue of long-finned pilot whale is also a concern. In the U.S., NMFS assesses the long-finned pilot whale in conjunction with the short-finned pilot whale (G. macrorhynchus) due to difficulties discerning between the two at sea. The 2002 assessment of Globicephala sp. in the western North Atlantic placed the population of U.S. stocks at 14,524 (CV=0.30). The International Whaling Commission placed population in the central and eastern North Atlantic at between 440,000 and 1,370,000.

For current information on the conservation status of this species, please consult the following websites.


References

Abend, A.G. and T.D. Smith. 1999. Review of distribution of the long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala melas) in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE-117.

Bernard, H.J., and S.B. Reilly. 1999. Pilot whales Globicephala Lesson, 1828. Pp. 245-280 in S. H. Ridgway and R. Harrison, eds. Handbook of marine mammals, Vol. 6 The second book of dolphins and the porpoises. Academic Press.

Boyd, I.L., C. Lockyer, and H.D. Marsh. 1999. Reproduction in Marine Mammals. Pages 218-286 in J.E. Reynolds and S.A. Rommel, eds. Biology of Marine Mammals. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

Donovan, G.P., C.H. Lockyer, and A.R. Martin (eds.). 1993. Biology of Northern Hemisphere pilot whales. Reports of the International Whaling Commission, Special Issue 14, 479 pp.

Gannon, D.P., A.J. Read, J.E. Craddock, K.M. Fristrup, and J.R. Nicolas. 1997. Feeding ecology of long-finned pilot whales Globicephala melas in the western North Atlantic. Marine Ecology Progress Series 1481-10.

Olson, P.A. and S.B. Reilly. 2002. Pilot whales Globicephala melas and G. macrorhynchus. Pp. 898-903 in W.F. Perrin, B. Würsig and J.G.M. Thewissen, eds. Encyclopedia of marine mammals. Academic Press.

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