Biometrics data (length, mass, frontal area) of blainville beaked whales needed for Master thesis.
I am a master student focus on the diving behaviour and stoking patterns of Mesoplodon densirostris Blainville beaked whales with Dtags.
In
order to calculate the body density of the animals I need to know what
is the frontal area of the animals to include it in a formula.
The
only information I have from the animals is if they are adult males ,
adult females or indeterminates. from there I need to estimate the
lenght
and mass of this animals. I would appreciate if there is some
information from strandings I can use from adult males, adult females
and indeterminates for the length, mass and frontal area (maximum
girth). If no, I was suggested to look at underwater pictures of
blainvilles in order to obtain a ratio of lenght and height (girth) in
order to estimate the girth of the animals from the estimated length
obtained from databases.
Any other suggestions are wellcome. or even if someone has developed an equation to calculate the frontal area from length.
Hope
someone can provide me with biometrics data or with submarine pictures
of blainvilles (lateral pictures in order to measure the length
accurately).
Please contact.
lmml2@st-andrews.ac.uk.
Thanks
Lucia