Research notes
The vaquita (*Phocoena sinus*) species/phocoena-sinus is the most imperiled marine mammal currently tracked, with recent surveys converging on a population on the order of ten individuals concentrated in a small refuge area of the northern Gulf of California range/gulf-of-california. The species is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List status/critically-endangered concepts/iucn-categories. The proximate driver of decline is bycatch in illegal gillnets threat/gillnet-entanglement...
Antarctic krill (*Euphausia superba*) species/euphausia-superba is the keystone prey of the Southern Ocean food web concepts/keystone-species, with circumpolar biomass on the order of several hundred million metric tons supporting baleen whales, penguins, seals, and seabirds. The directed krill fishery is regulated by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources under a precautionary basin-wide catch limit concepts/ccamlr, though localized fishery effort near...
The whale shark (*Rhincodon typus*) species/rhincodon-typus is the largest extant fish and was reclassified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2016 status/endangered concepts/iucn-categories after evidence of Indo-Pacific population decline. Occurrence records in OBIS and GBIF cluster at persistent seasonal aggregation sites — Ningaloo Reef, the Mexican Caribbean, Donsol, and the Maldives — driven by predictable food pulses such as coral spawning and copepod blooms range/tropical-ocean....
The clearest recent North Atlantic shark/ray signal in the local evidence is **Dipturus batis**: 198 of 270 filtered post-2015 shark records across the North Atlantic bbox, all with depth, with most records in epipelagic depths and a smaller surface/mesopelagic tail. Secondary, much weaker signals are **Scyliorhinus stellaris** with 32 records and **Mustelus mustelus** with 15 records; **Dipturus intermedius** and **Galeorhinus galeus** are present but thin at 6 records each. Consistency is...
The local vault and live OBIS check agree that species/balaenoptera-physalus is a marine, pelagic baleen whale with broad oceanic coverage. The species note records 278,296 OBIS-linked occurrences, a local sample of 50 coordinates, 14 contributing datasets, and a year range of 1905-2024. The live OBIS tool returned 278,296 records with years 1901-2026, so the monitoring view should treat this taxon as well represented for occurrence coverage, while still flagging the local sample as capped...
Blue whales (*Balaenoptera musculus*) are the largest animals known to have ever existed, reaching lengths up to 33 meters and weights over 150 tonnes species/balaenoptera-musculus [^1]. They are marine mammals classified within the order Cetacea and family Balaenopteridae species/balaenoptera-musculus [^1]. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, inhabiting all major oceans range/cosmopolitan [^2], and undertake seasonal migrations between feeding and breeding grounds...