364 
Fishery Bulletin 96(2), 1998 
physically immature male, and a 253-cm physically 
immature female. Although the sample is assumed 
to consist predominantly of the coastal form of bottle- 
nose dolphins, it is possible that specimens from the 
larger offshore form (Duffield et al., 1983; Hersh and 
Duffield, 1990; Hersh et al., 1990) were included. 
These specimens remained in the sample because 
they were not specifically identified as offshore indi- 
viduals from independent criteria. The inclusion of 
offshore individuals of various lengths may be re- 
sponsible for some of the variability in length at age 
seen in this study. 
Results from this study show that bottlenose dol- 
phins from the coast of Texas have some similarities 
and some differences with bottlenose dolphins from 
the west coast of Florida and the mid-Atlantic coast 
of the United States. However, samples size are 
small, precluding, for example, any substantial re- 
productive analyses. We strongly encourage the rou- 
tine collection of reproductive and other samples from 
stranded specimens. Such basic information as the 
average age at sexual maturation and calving inter- 
val remains unknown even though large numbers of 
bottlenose dolphins are found stranded each year. 
Acknowledgments 
This research was funded by National Marine Fish- 
eries Service, Southeast Fisheries Science Center, 
Miami Laboratory (SEFSC) and was conducted pri- 
marily at the SEFSC, Galveston Laboratory. We 
thank Raymond Tarpley (Founder and first Presi- 
dent) and Graham Worthy (current President) of the 
Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network (TMMSN) 
for providing access to samples and data. We are par- 
ticularly grateful to Elsa Haubold for facilitating 
access to database records and assisting with clarifi- 
cation of questions about the data. Efforts by regional 
coordinators and volunteers from Texas A&M Uni- 
versity at Galveston who collected data on these 
specimens are greatly appreciated. 
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