tag) on 27 July. A 520 cm male died prior to an 

 attempt to return all of the animals to offshore 

 waters. A group effort by Park Service, Florida 

 Marine Patrol, Coast Guard, and other personnel 

 successfully forced the remaining 29 out to sea. 

 Color photographs and a popular description of 

 this stranding are given by Porter (1977). 



3. On 2 August, National Park Service person- 

 nel found three shark-eaten P. crassidens carcas- 

 ses floating about 2 km off Cape Sable (Figure 1). 

 They towed these to shore and Odell examined 

 them on 3 August. 



4. On 23 August, Odell salvaged 20 P. crassi- 

 dens skulls from carcasses discovered on Cape 

 Sable by the National Park Service on 18 August. 

 The whales were severely decomposed when first 

 discovered and had probably been on the beach for 

 at least 2 wk. Sex determination and external 

 measurements were not possible (Odell and 

 Asper^; Odell et al.^). 



Results and Discussion 



We measured 29 of the 30 whales that stranded 

 on Loggerhead Key (total length only). The mean 

 length (±SD) of 12 males was 458±48 cm, range 

 377-534 cm and 17 females was 416 ±39 cm, range 

 328-494 cm. The mean lengths were significantly 

 different at the 0.01 level. The weight-length data 

 (250 kg, 297 cm; 327 kg, 338 cm; 359 kg, 358 cm; 

 773 kg, 475 cm) from the four live females that we 

 collected at North Captiva Island yielded the fol- 

 lowing predictive allometric equation corrected 

 for log transformation bias (Beauchamp and Olson 

 1973): W = 2.16 x lO'^L^^^^^ where Wis weight in 

 kilograms andL is length in centimeters. 



The length exponent in the above equation is 

 low when compared with similar equations for 

 several other marine mammals. Bryden (1972) 

 summarized the weight- length relationships for a 

 number of marine mammals. The length expo- 

 nents for several cetaceans are: Delphinapterus 



''Odell, D., and E. Asper. 1977. A summary of information 

 derived from a mass stranding of P. crassidens in Florida, 1976. 

 (Abstr.) Marine Mammal Stranding Workshop, Athens, Ga., 

 10-12 August, 1977, p. 20-21. U.S. Marine Mammal Commission 

 contract MM7AC020. 



«Odell, D. K., E. D. Asper, J. Baucom, and L. H. Cor- 

 nell. 1979. A summary of information derived from the re- 

 current mass stranding of a herd of false killer whales, 

 Pseudorca crassidens (Cetacea: Delphinidae). In J. R. Geraci 

 and D. J. St. Aubin (editors). Biology of marine mantmials: in- 

 sights through strandings, p. 207-222. Final Rep., U.S. Marine 

 Mammal Commission contract MM7AC020. Available Natl. 

 Tech. Inf. Serv., Springfield, Va., as PB 293380. 



leucas — two populations, males, 2.536 and 2.605 

 (Sergeant and Brodie 1969); Globicephala 

 melaena — 2.895; Balaenoptera musculus — 3.25 

 (Ash 1952); B. physalus— 2.9 (Ash 1952); B. 

 borealis — two populations, 2.43 and 2.74 (Omura 

 1950; Fujino 1955); and Megaptera novae- 

 angliae— 3.1 (Ash 1953). The mean ( ±SD) of these 

 eight length exponents is 2.807 ±0.283. The rela- 

 tively low length exponent for P. crassidens could 

 be due to the small sample size or perhaps to poor 

 condition of the animals, since we do not know how 

 long the animals had been without food before 

 stranding. However, the 95% confidence limits on 

 the P. crassidens length exponent are 

 2.437±0.564. 



The necropsies of six (four captive, two in field) 

 recently decreased whales indicated extensive 

 parasitism. Most apparent in all animals were 

 hundreds (perhaps thousands) of the acan- 

 thocephalan worm, Bolbosoma capitatum, at- 

 tached to the walls of the small intestine (Over- 

 street^). We found pieces of intestine with 

 attached acanthocephalans near the Cape Sable 

 animals. Five of the six animals had hundreds of 

 the nematode, Stenurus globicephalus, in the 

 pterygoid sinus complex. Three animals had the 

 stomach nematode, Anisakis cf. simplex (Over- 

 street see footnote 9). Four animals had S. 

 globicephalus in the lungs (Overstreet see footnote 

 9). Notable was the apparent absence in all six 

 animals of cestode plerocercoid cysts in the blub- 

 ber. Histopathology revealed that the ultimate 

 cause of death of the four captive females was 

 primarily pneumonia with some parasitic in- 

 volvement.^" The pathological condition(s) that 

 led to pneumonia remain speculative. Hall and 

 Schimpff^^' ^^ examined the brains of the captive 

 animals and of the male that died on Loggerhead 

 Key and found them free of major neurologic dis- 

 ease, although they stated that some animals 

 exhibited "behavioral symptoms suggestive of 



^Robin Overstreet, Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, Ocean 

 Springs, MS 39564, pers. commun. September 1976. 



'"Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, DC 

 20306, cases 1579706 and 1579707, pers. commun. October 1976. 



"Hall, N.R., and R.D.Schimpff. 1977. Neuropathology in 

 relation to stranding. 2. Mass stranded whales. (Abstr.) Marine 

 Mammal Stranding Workshop, Athens, Ga., 10-12 August 1977, 

 p. 28-29. U.S. Marine Mammal Commission contract 

 MM7AC020. 



i^Hall, N. R., and R. D. Schimpff. 1979. Neuropathology in 

 relation to strandings: mass strandings. In J. R. Geraci and D. 

 J. St. Aubin (editors). Biology of marine manomals: insights 

 through strandings, p. 236-242. Final Rep., U.S. Marine Mam- 

 mal Commission, contract MM7AC020. Available Natl. Tech. 

 Inf. Serv., Springfield, Va., as PB 293380. 



173 



