Dolphin-whale hybrid spotted near Hawaii

Marine biologists have welcomed a confirmed sighting of an ultra-rare dolphin-whale hybrid in the wild.

A report published last week by ocean research organisation Cascadia Research Collective concluded that a mammal spotted off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii, in August last year is indeed the product of mating between a dolphin and a whale.

The mammal is “only the third confirmed instance of a wild-born hybrid between species in the Delphinidae family”, according to an Associated Press report. The family covers sea dolphins and some whales, which is why inter-species breeding is possible.

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However, while previous hybrids have been the offspring of a male false killer whale and a female Atlantic bottlenose, the latest sighting appears to be the only recorded instance of a cross between a melon-headed whale and a rough-toothed dolphin.

The rare creature has predictably been termed a “wholphin” in media coverage, but Dr Robin Baird, one of the study’s authors, has urged reporters to resist the tempting portmanteau.

“I think calling it a wholphin just confuses the situation more than it already is,” he said.

Baird told BuzzFeed News that the team will head back to Kauai in August, where they will try to determine whether the female melon-headed whale seen swimming alongside the “wholphin” last year is its mother.

The first recorded dolphin-whale hybrid was born in captivity at a SeaWorld park in Tokyo in 1981, but died before it reached its first birthday.

Four years later, Keikaimalu was born at Hawaii’s Sea Life Park in Hawaii, the result of “an unplanned union” between a false killer whale and an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, according to the Chicago Tribune. She still lives at the park, the only living example of her kind in captivity.

“To know she has cousins out there in the ocean is an amazing thing to know,” said Sea Life park curator Jeff Pawloski in response to the new discovery, which he said was proof of the “genetic diversity of the ocean”.