Common porpoise

The common porpoise is a alive Cétacé marine in the Northern Atlantique. It is smallest of the six species of Phocoena which constitute the smallest species of Cetacea. There are three pennies species, one of North Atlantic, one in the Black Sea and one in the Pacifique.

Description

It measures 67 to 85 centimetres with the birth. Adult, whatever the sex, it measures between 1,4 and 1,9 meter. The females are slightly heavier, with a maximum weight of approximately 76 kg compared with 61 for the males.

The body is squat. The nozzle is badly delimited. The fins, the dorsal aileron, the caudal fin and its back are gray dark. It is clearer on with dimensions ones and almost white on its ventral face. One can observe gray scratches along the throat of the lower part of the mouth to the fins. It is thought that they can live nearly 25 years.

Anatomy

The size of the brain of the porpoise is comparable with our. It is one of the most intelligent animals of planet.

ethology

It with the characteristic to frequently swim in the wake of the ships, only or by groups of ten individuals. It is known that they can plunge at least up to 224 Mr. It is regarded as one of the fastest marine animals.

Chorology

It remains in general close to the coasts. This porpoise also often ventures itself in the estuaries. For this reason, he is the marine mammal generally seen by the coastal ones. They are relatively sedentary.

The species is present in cold coastal water of the northern Hemisphere, for a great part in the areas of which the average temperature is of roughly 15°C.

Food

The porpoises nourish mainly small Poisson S, in particular Hareng, Capelan, and sprat.

Predatory

The white sharks and the Orque S constitute its principal predator. One also could observe in Scotland that large dolphins, when they return in competition with them for food do not hesitate to attack them and to kill them.

Etymology

The first use of the term “porpoise” appears in a way isolated in a Latin text of 1086. This term, which could indicate this animal, is perhaps a Latinization of Danish , perhaps via the means Dutch meerswijn , literally “pig of sea”. Moreover the Germans thus name ( Schweinswal ) all the Phocoena .

Protection

The porpoises never have were not driven out actively by whalers because they are too small to be of interest. The global population is probably of several hundreds of thousands of individual and the species is not threatened. However a good number of them die in the drift nets in sufficiently large number so that one observes a fall of their population in the Baltic and in Black Sea. The porpoises let themselves also trap although they detect the presence of its nets thanks to their system of echolocation, of the attempts take place to equip certain nets with beacons to frighten them. These tests are however subjected to controversies for the pollution, in particular sound which it generates.

The species is protected by the convention from Bern and by the European directive Habitats.

Trivia

" Marsouin" is also the nickname given to the soldiers of the Troops of Navy, apart from the marine artillery troops (called the " Bigor s").

See too

External bonds

Sources

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