How to tell them apart? Discriminating tropical blackfish species using fin and body measurements from photographs taken at sea

• Published in: Marine mammal science Vol. 35; no. 4; pp. 1232 - 1252
• Main Authors: Yahn, Shelby N., Baird, Robin W., Mahaffy, Sabre D., Webster, Daniel L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.10.2019; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Aquatic mammals; blackfish; Body measurements; Cetacea; dorsal fin; Feresa attenuata; Fins; Globicephala macrorhynchus; Hawai‘i; Marine mammals; morphometry; Multidimensional scaling; Ontogeny; Orcinus orca; PCA; Peponocephala electra; Principal components analysis; Pseudorca crassidens; Ratios; Scaling; Species; Species identification; Sympatric populations; Tropical climate; Variance analysis; Year class

The misidentification of species and populations is a hindrance to effective cetacean management. We devised a method of species identification using 10 fin and body measurements obtainable from at‐sea photographs, and demonstrated its ability to distinguish four species of Hawaiian “blackfish”: pyg...