Forgotten Mediterranean calving grounds of grey and North Atlantic right whales: evidence from Roman archaeological records.

ABSTRACT: Right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) were extirpated from the eastern North Atlantic by commercial whaling. Grey whales (Eschrichtius robustus) disappeared from the entire North Atlantic in still-mysterious circumstances. Here, we test the hypotheses that both species previously occurred in the Mediterranean Sea, an area not currently considered part of their historical range. We used ancient DNA barcoding and collagen fingerprinting methods to taxonomically identify a rare set of 10 presumed whale bones from Roman and pre-Roman archaeological sites in the Strait of Gibraltar region, plus an additional bone from the Asturian coast. We identified three right whales, and three grey whales, demonstrating that the ranges of both of these species historically encompassed the Gibralt

SUBMITTER: Rodrigues ASL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6053924 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature