Tropical Whale in Puget Sound

What may be a Bryde's whale has washed ashore in Washington state. (News source.)

UK Killer Whales

There are two forms of killer whale that are found off the coast of the UK, according to researchers. (News source.)

Blue Whale Song Mystery

Wired has an interesting article on the tonal change mystery in blue whale songs over the years.

Sperm Whale Pics

Some interesting images of a sperm whale eating a squid have been taken. (News source.)

Rediscovered Whale to be Announced

A rediscovered "new species" of whale will be announced at the Indian Ocean Cetacean Symposium, currently under way in the Maldives. It was first discovered in 1963 by a Sri Lankan scientist, but "mistakenly categorised as a similar species that had been discovered a decade earlier." (News source.)

UK: Dolphin Superpod

Hundreds of dolphins were spotted migrating through the Moray Firth. (News source.)

Ocean Life Changes

An interesting Eurekalert here about the changes in marine species' sizes and abundance levels over the last few centuries.

White Elephant Seal

A leucistic southern elephant seal has been reported from a sub-Antarctic beach. (News source.)

Snubfin Dolphin Behavior

The recently described snubfin dolphin has some interesting predatory behavior: "the small dolphins hunt in groups, chasing fish to the surface of the water and rounding them up by shooting jets of water from their mouths." (News source.)

More on Unknown Seals

A bit more from a news article on the recent paper on possible unknown pinnipeds.

Pinniped Discovery Potential

Darren Naish has posted details on a new paper on the possibility of new pinnipeds, here.

The paper itself:

Woodley, M. A., Naish, D. & Shanahan, H. P. 2009. How many extant pinniped species remain to be described? Historical Biology doi:10.1080/08912960902830210

Pink Dolphin

An albino bottlenose dolphin (with a distinctive pink hue) has shown up in Louisiana's Lake Calcasieu, an inland saltwater estuary. (News source, and here.)

They're Getting Smarter...

It's fun to anthropomorphize otters...

Oregon Sea Otter

A sea otter has migrated to the Oregon coast, the first confirmed sighting since 1906. (News source.)

Sponges as Dolphin Tools

PLoS has an interesting research article on some Australian dolphins that use conical sponges to disturb the seafloor in an effort to locate prey.

Killer Whales in the Gulf of Mexico

Not unheard of, but uncommon: video here.

Dolphin Puzzle Solved

Gray's Paradox, which suggested that dolphins swim faster than they should be able to, has been evaluated and solved. Dolphins are stronger than Gray first thought. Details here.

New Dolphin Identified

A new paper presents evidence for a new species of cetacean, the Southern Australian bottlenose dolphin. (News source.) Species has not yet been described.

Another Sea Lion Found

Another of the California sea lions that escaped a St. Kitts facility has been located, this one in Antigua. (News source.)

OOP Sea Lion

A sea lion turned up on a Dominica beach. It was one of five sea lions that escaped from a hodling facility in St. Kitts. (News source.)

Dugongs are wandering, too

You can add this to the meandering manatees file (sirenians, anyway). From Malaysia:

"LANGKAWI: The discovery of a dead dugong on the coast of Pulau Tuba, near here, is causing a stir not only among the locals but also in the research community.
"After years of failing to get a single sighting of the animal, yesterday’s discovery at least confirmed that there were dugongs in the waters here.
"A fisherman found the carcass floating in the mangrove swamp of Lubok Cempedak in Pulau Tuba, a small populated island off Kuah town here in the morning.
"The 100kg carcass, which had shallow scratches on its body, was taken by boat to Kuah where it was later stored at the Langkawi Underwater World.
"The animal, measuring 190cm, was still bleeding from its mouth when it was found.
"Langkawi fisheries head Badeli Hassan said a post-mortem would be conducted by an expert from the Turtle and Marine Eco-system Centre in Rantau Abang, Dungun.
"Meanwhile, islander Mohd Ratu Mansur, 30, who helped retrieve the carcass, said the locals here initially thought the animal was a seal.
"'We didn’t know it was a dugong as we’ve never seen one before. Then I remembered watching a programme about the dugong which was found in Johor.'
"'Maybe it got lost here as I’ve never heard local folk talking about any dugong sightings before,' he said."