Common dolphins, common in neritic waters off southern Israel, demonstrate uncommon dietary habits

Abstract

1. During the last decade, the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) has become the second most sighted species in Israeli coastal waters, after the common bottlenose dolphin. Documentation mostly relies on opportunistic, photo and/or videobacked second-party reports, delimited within a 10 km near-shore strip.

Sightings and Strandings of the Cetacean Fauna in the Mediterranean Coast of the Gaza Strip, Palestine

“…As far as the Israeli sightings of the dolphin in question are concerned, many group sightings were made; one of which were for 30 individuals including six calves, were sighted 50 km west of Gaza on August 2007. Similar squid, shrimp and a wide variety of fishes (Brand et al, 2019). For this reason, many…”

“…Kerem et al (2012) focused on the cetacean fauna occurring in the Mediterranean Levantine basin, and they revealed that diversity of cetacean species in the Levantine basin equals that in the western basins. Brand et al (2019) pointed out that the Short-Beaked Common Dolphin (Delphinus delphis) has become the second most sighted species in Israeli coastal waters, after the Common Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). In addition to the previous studies, a lot of Israeli studies have examined the diversity of baleen and toothed whales in the eastern Mediterranean (Goffman et al, 2000;Spanier et al, 2000;Shoham-Frider et al, 2002, 2014Sharir, 2008;Gaspari et al, 2015;Bearzi, 2017 andBrand et al, 2019).…”

The conservation of the endangered Mediterranean common dolphin (Delphinus delphis): Current knowledge and research priorities

“…The most prevalent species found in the stomachs were the Balearic eel (Ariosoma balearicum), a sand burrower that is also the main dietary component of bottlenose dolphins (T. truncatus) in the area. It was hypothesized that common dolphins in the area must be following bottom trawlers to feed on benthic species, similar to the activities of bottlenose dolphins (Brand et al, 2016(Brand et al, , 2021.…”

“…In the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, including the Strait of Messina, the species occurrence is reported to be higher (Pace et al, 2015, 2016; Santoro et al, 2015), but no abundance estimates are available. Records of D. delphis have been documented in other Italian waters (Mussi et al, 2016; Pace et al, 2016, 2019), in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Pace et al, 2015), Ischia Island (Mussi et al, 2021; Mussi & Miragliuolo, 2003, 2005), near Lampedusa Island (Pace et al, 2015), off western Sardinia (IUCN, 2017), at Cap Bon, north‐east Tunisia (Aissi & Vella, 2015; Benmessaoud, Chérif, Bradai, & Bejaoui, 2012), in the eastern Ionian Sea (Frantzis & Herzing, 2002), in the Aegean Sea (Dede & Öztürk, 2007; Giannoulaki et al, 2017; Ryan et al, 2014), in the Levantine Sea (Boisseau et al, 2010; Brand et al, 2021; Kerem et al, 2012), in Libyan waters (Benamer, 2016), and along the Algerian west coast (Larbi Doukara, 2021; Larbi Doukara, Bouslah, Bouderbala, & Boutiba, 2016) and the Moroccan coast (Masski & De Stephanis, 2015). In the Adriatic Sea, common dolphins appear to be extremely rare in recent times (Genov, Kotnjek, & Centrih, 2021), despite historically well‐documented presence (Bearzi, Notarbartolo di Sciara, Reeves, Cañadas, & Frantzis, 2004).…”

“…Stranding data sources : (1) Mediterranean Database of Cetacean Strandings (MEDACES; http://medaces.uv.es/); (2) Italian Stranding Database (University degli Studi di Pavia, Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano, Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare; http://mammiferimarini.unipv.it/); (3) Vella (2005) for Maltese Islands; (4) Milani et al (2017) for North Aegean Sea; (5) Larbi Doukara (2021) for Algerian coast; (6) Benamer (2016) for Libyan coast additional to those by MEDACES; (7) Masski and De Stephanis (2015) for Moroccan coast; (8) Genov et al (2021), Izola, Slovenia; (9) Lazar, Holcer, Mackelworth, Klincic, and Herceg Romanic (2012), Island of Cres, Croatia. Long‐term research areas and IMMAs, including Delphinus delphis , sources: (1) Kerem et al (2012) and Brand et al (2021) for Levantine area (also IMMA); (2) Bearzi et al (2003, 2005) for Eastern Ionian Archipelago (also IMMA); (3) Frantzis and Herzing (2002), Bearzi, Bonizzoni, Santostasi, Eddy, et al (2016), and Bearzi, Bonizzoni, Santostasi, Furey, et al (2016) for Gulf of Corinth (also IMMA); (4) Milani et al (2017, 2019) for North Aegean waters; (5) Mussi & Miragliuolo (2003, 2005) and Mussi et al (2021) for waters of Ischia Island (also IMMA); (6) Vella (2005), Vella (2015), and Vella and Vella (2016) for Central Mediterranean waters around the Maltese Islands; (7) Bearzi et al (2003) and Pace et al (2015) in southern part of the Pelagos Sanctuary; (8) Cañadas and Hammond (2008) and Giménez, Cañadas, et al (2018) for the Alboran Sea (also IMMA); (9) Gómez de Segura et al (2006, 2007) Alegro‐Provencal basin…”