A NOTE ON A STRANDING OF THE HUMPBACK WHALE
ON THE SOUTHERN
COAST OF BRAZILMARIA CRISTINA PINEDO*

A humpback whale (Megaptera novaengliae) stranded alive on a beach 89 km
north of the mouth of Patos Lagoon (31°38'S, 51°2l'W), Rio Grande do Sul,in southern Brazil, on August 26, 1980. Fig. 1 shows a map of the position.
According to fishermen, a school of approximately ten humpback whales wassighted swimming parallel to the beach on the previous day, and one of themstranded on a sand bank near the beach suddenly. Then, a strong southernwind pushed the whale to the beach. When I arrived there on August 28, theanimal was still alive burying its belly into the sand. Although we intented torescue the animal, it was too large in size to return it to the water.
The animal was male and 11.15 m long. I took some photographs (oneof them is shown in Fig. 2), and measured its body proportions based on
Leatherwood, Caldwell and Winn (1976), as shown in Table 1. It was estimated from the body length to sexually mature bassed on Chittleborough(1965). Cirripeds (Coronula diadema) infested the animal heavily on tubercles
of both jaws and knobs of anterior margins of flippers. Cyamid amphipods
which were identified as Cyamus catodontis (Arvy, 1977) were also found on thesurface of its both jaws.
Fishermen obtained permission from the local fisheries fiscalization
agency to kill the animal, and it was slaughtered by about ten fishermen on
the beach. The whale oil was sold for leather tanning, and the whale meat wasconsumed locally. After flensing of the carcass, number of baleen plates ofleft side were counted by touching the base of each plate, and the length ofthe longest baleen plate was measured as shown in Table 1. Cervical andcaudal vertebrae, some right ribs and right scapula were collected by a teamof the Rio Grande Oceanographic Museum, and they were deposited in themuseum as the Specimen No. 104.
Fig. 1 summarizes previous records of positions of humpback whalescaught or sighted in the waters near Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina in pastand suggest that they visited the brazilian coast more frequently in winter.
Catch history of humpback whales in the northeastern Brazil indicates thatbrazilian humpback stock had decreased largely. According to Williamson(1975), the average an annual catch of humpback whales in the whaling* Depto. Oceanografia, Funda<;ao Universidade do Rio Grande, C.P. 474, 96.200 Rio Grande, R.S., Brazil
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 36, 1985, 165-168

166

PINEDOground changes from 222.6 whales in the 1910-1914 period to 9.8 in 19601963 period, and the last record of catch of humpback whales in brazilia:nwaters was 1963.
Furthermore, in seven years of monthly observations over 120 km along
the coast and three years of on board observations on the R/V "Atlantico Sul"
(FURG), this is the first record of a humpback whale in Rio Grande do Sul.
This record suggest that the brazilian stock could be returning to the places
they frequented at the begining of this century, in a similar way as the rightwhale is doing (Pinedo, 1984).

.A. FE NANDO

TJAODENO ONHAPESSOA~

BRAS Ll---+---------t---------t--~-----t---------ii0°. .ABROLHOSf+--+--+-------+-----------A'-----------,v.----+~~~~---------i2if~'

ATRINDADE~~----"'V. ----- Tropic of Capricorn
~.&.

PUNT

400

5if40"

Fig. 1. Distribution of catch areas and records of M. novaeangliae accordaing Lahille (1903)(0), Townsend (1935) (.&),Hinds (1965) and Paiva & Grangeiro (1965) (~),Hinds (1965)(CJ), Vaz-Ferreira (1970) (e), Cummings et al. (1974) (0) and present record(*).

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 36, 1985STRANDINGOFTHEHUMPBACKWHALE

167

TABLE 卜 MEASUREMENTSOFTHESTRANDEDM.NOVAEANGL!
AEO NAUGUST26,1980ATRI
O GRANDEDOSULCOAST,BR
AZIL(AND % OFTOTALLENGTH)cm
I. Tipofupp
er
jawt
odeepestpar
tofflukenotch2. Tipofupperjawt
obl
owholes
3. TipofupperjawLOangl
eofgape
4 Lengt
hofeye(left)
5. Rostrummaxi
mumwi
dth
6
. Fi
lpperlength‑tiptoanteriorinsertion(right)
7. F
lipperwi
dth(right)
8. Do
rs
alf
i
nbase
9. Do
rsalfinhei
ght
10. F
lu
k
espan
1
1. F
lu
kew
i
dth
1
2. Blubb
erthickness(lateral)
1
3 Bal
eenp
lates,lengthl
ongest1
4. Baleencounts(leftupper)
1
5. Numberofma
xillarnotches(right)(left)(middle)16. Numbero
fv
i
bris
saepr
es
em i
nt
henotches
1
7 Vibtissael
engthr
ange
目n。

1,
1
15.
0
2
2
2.0
3
2
0.
0
2
4.
0
91.0
4
2
0.
0
1
10.
0
1
2
8.
0
3
7.
0
4
3
2.
0
1
30.
0
1
9.
0
4
5.
0%
1
00
1
9.
9
2
8.
7
2.
2
8.
2
3
7.
7
9.
9
1
1.5
3.
3
38.
7
1
1.7
1.
7
4.
0

256
1
5
1
4
7
92.
3
‑
4.
5．
．
」
・．

Fig.2.Mal
eMegapteranovaeang
liaestrandedatR
ioGrandedoSu
lcoast(31。
38s.51°21W)onAugust,I!
:
180.
Sci.Rep. WhalesRes.I
nst.,
No.36, 1985

168

PINEDOI would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr Dyrce Lacombe ofFundacao Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, who kindly identified the cirripeds.
Thanks are also due to Lie. H.P. Castello, Museo Argentino de CienciasNaturales, Buenos Aires and Dr D.E. Gaskin, University of Guelph, Canada,
for the comments on the manuscript.
REFERENCES
ARVY, L., 1977. La peau, Jes phaneres et leurs parasites chez Jes cetaces. Vie Millieu, 27 (2): 137-190.
CHrITLEBOROUGH, R.G., 1965. Dynamics of two populations of humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae(Borowski). Aust.]. Mar. Freshw. Res., 16 (1): 33-128.
CUMMINGS, W.C., P.O. THOMPSON andJ.F. FISH., 1974. Behavior of southern right whales: R/V Hero cruise
72-3. Antarct. ]., 9 (2): 33-38.
HINDS, G.M., 1965. A baleia no Brasil. Agrirural. Bal. Irif. Dep. Eco., Rio de Janeiro, 85: 2-48.
LAHILLE, F., 1903. Las ballenas de nuestros mares II. Bal. Centro Naval, 11: 361-387.
LEATHERWOOD, S., D.K. CALDWELL and H.W. WINN., 1976. Whales, dolphins and porpoises of the western
North Atlantic. A Guide to their identification. NOAA Technical Report NMFS CIRC-396: 176.
PAIVA, M.P. and B.F. GRANGEIRO., 1965. Biological investigations on the whaling seasons 1960-1963 offnortheastern coast of Brazil. Arq. Est. Biol. Mar. Univ. Ceara, 5 (1): 29-64.
PINEDO, M.C., 1984. Ocorrencia de Eubalaena australis no litoral do Rio Grande do Sul, corn observa<;oes decopula. Resumenes de la Prim. Reun. Trabajo de Expertos en Mam. Acuaticos de Am. de! Sud,Buenos Aires, junho 1984, p.34.
TOWNSEND, C.H., 1935. The distribution of certain whales as shown by logbook of American whaleships.
Zoologica, New York, 19 (1): 2-50.
VAZ-FERREIRA, R., 1970. FAUNA: Conservation y recursos. Coleccion Nuestra Terra, Montevideo, 45: 3-60.
WILLIAMSON, G.R., 1975. Minke whales off Brazil. Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst., 27: 37-59.

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 36, 1985