Oh mother, where art thou? DNA profiles show that mass strandings of pilot whales may not be driven by kinship, as previously thought
Thursday, March 14, 2013 - 12:30
in Biology & Nature
Recent research has shed some light on whether family relationships play a role in beachings of otherwise healthy whales. Investigators used genetic data to describe the kinship of individual long-finned pilot whales involved in mass strandings. The study found that stranded groups are not necessarily members of one extended family, contradicting the hypothesis that stranding groups all descend from a single ancestral mother. Further, many stranded calves were found with no mother in evidence.