I have spent the past 6 years stationed in the Samoa archipelago, Polynesia. In November 2015 I have bought from the people of a village located in the NE coast of Upolu a tooth extracted from the carcass of a sperm whale that had rolled few days earlier within a deep lagoon. I explored the carcass that same day. It was still quite fresh, with a quite large tiger shark feasting on it.

It took 1.5 years to get a CITES permission from the Samoan Govt. on scientific grounds. I applied as a freelance researcher affiliated with the National University of Samoa (NUS) and the Natural History Museum of Florence, Italy. I have committed with the Samoan Govt. to do my best to get as much scientific information as possible from this sample. I thought that obtaining a sample from a protected pelagic species like this would not be so simple and would be quite a unique opportunity.

Despite I am not an expert in this field I have prepared a simple research proposal made up of 3 objectives: 1. age the individual sperm whale, as getting to know the age may give clues on the causes of death; 2. analyse the inner tissue of the tooth in order to detect occurrence of any heavy metal or radionuclides; 3. extract DNA for genetic analysis.

Please assist me to get in contact with cetacean research groups that may be potentially interested in analysing this specimen.

Thank you.

G. Serra