In the Ojo de Liebre lagoon in the south of the California Peninsula, a pair of conjoined gray whale twins was found - for the first time in the history of observations for this species. The dead whales were found by employees of the local environmental organization Guerrero Negro Verde. Photos of the animals appeared on the ecologists' Facebook page, with some details on the Pete Thomas Outdoors blog.
According to the scientists who arrived at the site, whales have two heads, two tails, but in the area of the belly they are united into a single organism like "Siamese twins." The length of the fused animals was just over two meters. Since gray whale calves are usually born between 3.5 and 5 meters in length, scientists believe that the twins were born prematurely. However, what exactly caused the death of the whales is not specified in the message. The bodies of the animals were removed for research.
Siamese twins have been described in fin whales, sei whales, and some other species of whales, but they have not yet been found among the Californian gray whales, Eschrichtius robustus. Representatives of this species are distinguished among cetaceans into a separate family due to their pronounced archaic features of anatomy.
Photo: Gabriela Rodrigues
In gray whales, for example, vibrissae ("whiskers") are preserved on the muzzle, and the head is mobile relative to the body. In addition, representatives of the species predominantly inhabit the coastal regions of the ocean and do not migrate long distances like other cetaceans.
Gray whales are one of the few animals whose population has grown significantly thanks to the efforts of environmentalists. In the middle of the 20th century, animals were threatened with extinction, but by 1994 they were deleted from the list of such species due to the significantly increased number of individuals. Nevertheless, as studies have shown, it was not possible to restore the population to its previous volume.
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Photo: Jesus Gomez