Scientists are touting the first sighting of a hybrid between a melon-headed whale and a rough-toothed dolphin in the ocean off Hawaii — but do not call it a “wholphin,” they said.
The melon-headed whale is one of the various species that is called a whale, but is technically a dolphin.
“Calling it something like a wholphin doesn’t make any sense,” said Robin Baird, a Hawaii research biologist with Washington state-based Cascadia Research Collective and a coauthor of a study on the hybrid. “I think calling it a wholphin just confuses the situation more than it already is.”
In the study published last week, scientists said the animal spotted off the island of Kauai in August last year appears to be the first record of a hybrid involving either species.
It was also only the third confirmed instance of a wild-born hybrid between species in the Delphinidae family.
The label “wholphin” has stuck for a hybrid born in 1985 at Sea Life Park Hawaii of a false killer whale and an Atlantic bottle-nose dolphin.
The hybrid, named Kekaimalu, still lives at the marine mammal park, where she helps teach children about genetics.
News of the hybrid spotted in the wild during US Navy-funded research to study the effects of sonar proves the “genetic diversity of the ocean,” Sea Life Park Hawaii curator Jeff Pawloski said.
“I always thought they were out there in the wild existing — it only makes sense,” he said. “And to know she has cousins out there in the ocean is an amazing thing to know.”
While some news organizations have described the melon-headed whale and rough-toothed dolphin hybrid as a new species, in order for that to happen other things need to occur, including more widespread hybridization, Baird said.
“That isn’t the case, although there are examples where hybridization has resulted in a new species,” he said. “There’s no evidence to suggest it’s leading toward anything like species formation.”
The male hybrid presents an opportunity to look for others. Hybrids generally occur when there is a decline in the population in one of the parental species, so scientists will be looking out for such a decline.
A likely scenario for how the hybrid came to be is a melon-headed whale getting separated from its group and ending up traveling with rough-toothed dolphins.
Scientists do not know how old it is, but believe it is close to adulthood.
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