cuts in captive bottlenose dolphins. They examined the wounds at 1, 3, 7, and 

 10 days. While Bruce- Allen and Geraci examined very shallow lacerations in 

 captive animals over a short period of time, some interesting morphological 

 parallels to the present study are apparent. 



After 6 hr the wounds studied by Bruce-Allen and Gerad had "raised, 

 sharp black edges". By day 1 the dark lines were more pronounced. In the 

 present study, the darker skin surrounding the wound seen in stages 1 and 2 

 (Table 10) may correspond to the darker skin seen by Bruce- Allen and Gerad 

 through at least day 2. By day 3 of the Bruce- Allen and Gerad study, a thin, 

 poorly pigmented epidermal layer had completely covered the experimental 

 laceration. The larger and deeper biopsy wounds of the present study's free- 

 ranging dolphins may have been covered by new epidermis as early as day 15. 

 On day 7 of the Bruce-Allen and Geraci study, the epidernus was well healed, 

 but the lacerations were white in color and "a .5 cm medium gray halo 

 remained, blending into the surrounding tissue". We observed a similar gray 

 halo in stages 1 and 2 (days 8 to 26), measuring approximately 4 mm wide. On 

 day 10 of the Bruce-Allen and Gerad study, wounds were becoming 

 repigmented and the lacerations were visible as a "white linear mark 

 bordered by a narrow dark gray band". In the present study, the entire surface 

 area of the wounds was repigmented by day 61. 



Bruce-Allen and Gerad concluded that healing in bottlenose dolphins 

 was not dramatically different from that of terrestrial mammals, undergoing 

 similar histological and ultrastructural stages and that, at least for cutaneous 

 wounds, healing occurred at rates similar to terrestrial mammals. The lack of 

 color was assodated with "pale, unaligned spinous cells with diffuse [not 

 perinuclear] melanosomes" (Bruce-Allen and Gerad 1985). One point of 

 departure from healing in terrestrial mammals was noted by Bruce-Allen and 

 Geraci. They found no scab, but instead a transformation of exposed 

 epidermal surface to degenerating cells with vesicles. They hypothesized that 

 this served as a buffer between the saltwater environment and healing tissue. 



Sample size limitations precluded comparisons within and among 

 individuals; and across sex, age, health, and reproductive condition classes. It 

 is interesting to note, however, that the dolphin which received the poorest 

 heath evaluation, FB517, provided the earliest datapoint in the final healing 

 stage of Table 10 (61 days post biopsy). Poor health may not hamper healing of 

 deep wounds to the blubber layer. 



Behavioral responses of the dolphins were monitored during the 

 physiological processing, which involved bringing the dolphins aboard a boat 

 (Sweeney 1992). The responses were generally calm, but some animals became 

 agitated enough that processing stopped early or was finished in the water 



32 



