‘Unique’ Dolphin with ‘Thumbs’ Spotted by Researchers in Greece in Rare Discovery

A dolphin spotted off the coast of Greece stuck out of their pod like a sore thumb!

A striped dolphin, which has thumb-like fins, has been spotted twice this summer in the Gulf of Corinth, Live Science reported.

The rare creature was spotted and photographed by researchers from the Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute (PCRI), a scientific non-profit organization focused on the study and conservation of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises).

PCRI first reported the sightings in October while sharing the results of recent surveys of the ship in a YouTube video.

“We filmed a unique striped dolphin with thumbs on both pectoral fins,” the institute wrote in the description of the video.

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According to Alexandros Frantiz, president of the PCRI who took the photos of the rare dolphins, this was not only a “unique” sighting – it was something the Institute had never seen before.

“It was the first time we had seen this surprising fin morphology in 30 years of open sea research and also in studies over 30 years of monitoring all stranded dolphins along the coast of Greece,” Frantzis told Live Science via email.

Close-up photos of a thumb-like fin documented on a striped dolphin by the Pelagos Institute for Cetacean Research.

Alexandros Frantzis/Pelagos Institute for Whale Research

Despite the creature’s rare thumb-like fins – which “[do] doesn’t look like a disease at all,” according to the researcher—he was able to keep up with the rest of their flock, “swimming, jumping, bow riding [and] playing with other dolphins, he said.

The Gulf of Corinth, a semi-enclosed bay of the Ionian Sea, is the permanent home of about 1,300 striped dolphins that are isolated from the rest of the Mediterranean population, according to the Working Group on Marine Mammal Protected Areas.

Dolphin thumb fins may be “an expression of some rare and ‘irregular’ genes” that arose from interbreeding in an isolated dolphin population, Frantzis told Live Science.

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Lisa Noelle Cooper, an associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED), also spoke to the journal and agreed with Frantzis’ theory that thumb-like fins are linked to marine mammal genetics.

“I’ve never seen a cetacean fin that’s shaped like this. Given that the defect is on both the left and right fins, it’s likely the result of an altered genetic program that shapes the fin during development as a calf,” said Cooper, who studies mammalian bone structure. according to his NEOMED biography.

Photo of a striped dolphin.

Getty

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While human fingers are fused into hands in the womb with cells that die before birth, dolphin fins form cells that accumulate around their forelimb bones, according to Cooper.

“Normally, dolphins develop their toes inside the fin, and the cells between the toes don’t die,” she told Live Science.

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Cooper said the “hook”-like fin observed in the unique dolphin from the Gulf of Corinth – where only the thumb and fourth toe remain – appears to be the result of missing finger tissue and bones.

“It seems to me that the cells that would normally form the equivalent of our index and middle finger died in a strange event when the fin was forming while the cub was still in the womb,” she told the news outlet.

Of the creature’s “thumb,” she said it “might have some bones in it, but it’s certainly not movable,” noting that “no whale has movable thumbs.”

Cooper added: “It’s great to see this animal thriving.”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education