2S4 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



Bonin Islands (Mizue, 1950, p. 116) and Japan (Omura, 1950, p. 96). This curious form of parasitism, 

 so locally restricted on the animal, is clearly world-wide in incidence, although uncommon. It appears 

 to have been reported from no other toothed whale except the northern bottlenosed whale (Nansen, 

 1925, p. 237). Conchoderma auritum is restricted to the extreme tip of the sperm whale's mandible 

 because it is only here that the flexible stalks, fixed to the very base of the front teeth, can remain 

 uninjured when the mouth is tightly shut with the two rows of teeth snugly received into their 

 maxillary sockets. This is shown by the special case of three whales with deformed lower jaws ; one of 

 these is mentioned by Mr A. G. Bennett (in Nilsson-Cantell, 1930, p. 251), one by Commander 

 H. Buckle, Whale Fishery Inspector aboard Fl. F. Balaena, in his unpublished report on the 1950-1 

 Antarctic season, and the third was the whale F 153 examined at Horta in 1952 and mentioned on p. 255. 

 Because of their deformity these three whales could not properly close their mouths, and each bore 

 a heavy infestation of Conchoderma auritum along the length of the tooth rows (Plate II, fig. 1). 



Internal parasites 

 The common internal parasite recorded at Horta was the ascarid nematode Anisakis physeteris Baylis, 

 which was found plentifully infesting the first and second stomachs of all the whales examined. 

 Stomach nematodes have already been recorded from an Azores whale by Monaco (1895, p. 308). 

 Mr S. Prudhoe, of the British Museum (Natural History), who kindly identified the specimens 

 collected in 1949, could not find amongst them A. catodontis, the other species parasitising the sperm 

 whale and described by Baylis (1929, p. 544) from a single South African infection. But Anisakis, 

 probably physeteris, is common in the stomachs of sperm whales everywhere (Bennett, 1840, 11, 

 p. 169; Hamilton, 1914; Matthews, 1938, p. 128; Scheffer, 1939, p. 68; Bolognari, 1949, p. 5; 

 Cockrill, 1951; Rees, 1953). 



The intestines of whales were opened once or twice in 1949, but the only obvious infestation was 

 a tapeworm which protruded from the wall of the small intestine of one whale. The head was not 

 recovered but five fragments, apparently belonging to one individual, measured 9-61 m. and have 

 been identified as Priapocephalus grandis (Markowski, 1955, p. 390), a species recently recorded from 

 a sperm whale in the Antarctic (Rees, 1953) as well as from blue, fin and sei whales and the southern 

 right whale (Nybelin, 1922, p. 198; Baylis, 1932, p. 401 ; Markowski, 1955, p. 394). In 1954 Senhor 

 Reis extracted from the gut of another whale several tapeworm fragments which were 40 m. (131 ft.) 

 in total length. A fragment which was preserved has external characters corresponding to those of 

 Priapocephalus grandis. Senhor Reis could find only one head, so he considers that all the fragments 

 belonged to one individual. If he is correct, I do not know of any record of a longer cestode. 



Another cestode formed opaque cysts in the blubber of some of the whales at Horta. Pouchet (1888) 

 and Monaco (1895, p. 308) have earlier noticed them in whales captured in the Azores. Matthews 

 (1938, p. 128) records such an encysted species, Phyllobrothium physeteris, as commonly occurring in 

 southern whales, and ' cysticerci ' are also mentioned by Bennett (1837, p. 42) and Hamilton (1914). 



In these notes on parasites there appears to be nothing to suggest that Azores whales are racially 

 distinct from sperm whales elsewhere. 



DISEASE, DEFORMITY AND INJURY 



Disease. The thirty-seven whales examined in 1949 were virtually free of disease. Two males (F4 

 and F 17) bore on their flanks a few dingy white circular areas, about the size of florins, which might 

 have been ringworm patches. I have seen these patches on sperm whales in the Antarctic. Matthews 

 mentions something similar (1938, p. 126) and they also occur on whalebone whales (Mackintosh, 



