FIRST RECORDS OF DWARF SPERM WHALE (KOGIA BREVICEPS) PYGMY SPERM WHALE (K. SIMUS) AND PYGMY KILLER WHALE (FERESA ATTENUATA) IN VERACRUZ, MEXICO

Resumen

There are up to 27 marine mammal species in the northern part of Gulf of Mexico (Mullin, K.D. et al., 1994. Fish. Bull. 92(4): 773-786). Most of these have been recorded as strandings and as sightings. We believe that these species are also found in the Mexican part of the Gulf of Mexico, but we have only few records of them in the area. In this paper we document the occurrences of three cetaceans with pelagic distribution (Leatherwood, S. & R.R. Reeves, 1983. La Sierra Club handbook of whales and dolphins. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, California, pp. 92, 95, 161), which are scarcely known in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The specimens were stranded alive in three different localities of the Veracruz coast.