Phocaena obtusata

 

 

At the end of the winter of 1888, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Federico Godoy of Concepción, I received the skin of a tunina caught in the bay of Talcahuano, which clearly constitutes a new species, which I name Phocaena obtusata.

Dimensions:
•    Total length, measured at the curve of the back – 149cm
•    Distance between the tip of the snout and the dorsal fin – 69cm
•    Length of the root of the dorsal fin – 20cm
•    Perpendicular height of this fin – 9cm
•    Distance between the dorsal and caudal fins – 60cm
•    Length of the caudal fin at its midpoint – 11cm
•    Width of the caudal fin – 35cm
•    Distance between the tip of the snout and the pectoral fin – 31cm
•    Length of the root of this fin – 8cm
•    Oblique height of the root – 19cm
•    Length of the mouth – 15cm
•    Distance between the tip of the snout and the eye – 18cm
•    Distance between the two pectoral fins – 20cm
•    Maximum body circumference excluding the pectoral fins – 85cm

The body is well Fusiform; the dorsal and ventral lines are almost of the same curvature, the ventral being slightly more convex. The forehead is very sloping and only slightly convex. The eye is located in line with the mouth, and at one-third of the height of the head. The anterior part of the head, viewed from above, shows the shape of an equilateral triangle with a rounded point. The caudal part of the body is keeled as usual, and the dorsal line shows a marked angle at the beginning of this keel. The dorsal fin has a very blunt and rounded tip, and its posterior margin is only slightly forked. The pectoral fins are even more blunt, and almost the same width along their entire length; they are situated very low, as is proven, besides the drawing, by the short distance between them. The coloration is quite distinctive: the lower half of the body is a beautiful silvery white, the upper half a very dark black, and from the white portion extend five short bands of the same color upwards. The fins are black. I cannot guarantee the width, etc., of these bands; the skin I received had lost its epidermis in several places, so it was necessary to paint the embalmed animal. But disregarding the color, the shape of the head and fins alone would be sufficient to distinguish this species.

- Philippi, Anales Museo Nacional de Chile, Premira Seccion Zoolojia, 1893, pp. 12-13

 

Phantom species don’t often jump out at me when I’m looking through books or illustrations – often their peculiarities aren’t terribly obvious until you get into the details. For example, Bory’s Dolphin looks fairly unremarkable unless you really scrutinize details like the white moustache. However, this one jumped out at me right away, for obvious reasons.

 

My sources come in many languages, but this is the first Spanish source I’ve had. The description comes from Rodolfo Amando Philippi (born Rudolph Amandus Philippi in 1808), a German-Chilean zoologist. He describes a very unique porpoise with a “lobed” pattern which is not immediately identifiable.

An interesting element of this report is that the animal was brought to Philippi in the form of a skin, and I’m not exactly sure what he means by that (what would a dolphin skin even look like?). However, he does mention that the skin was damaged to the point of needing to be touched up with paint, which is interesting. I previously made a blog post cataloguing rare examples of cetacean taxidermy, highlighting how they are difficult to preserve.

 

An example of a preserved dolphin whose colouration has been touched up with paint. Would you feel confident describing this species based on this? Photo: @wingcoaster

 

I’m curious if the porpoise illustrated was based on Philippi’s observations pre-touch up or post-touch up, but I’m inclined to say this was made post-touch up or perhaps during. There’s a good chance someone deliberately painted this dolphin like this before the new species claim was made, like a shady taxidermist dying a bird’s feathers so they can sell a rarer bird. Only in this case, the aim may not have been to deliberately dupe a collector, but a genuine attempt at preservation.

I recently recorded a presentation where I came up with several key reasons why there are so many examples of phantom whale species, and one of my hypothesized contributing factors was capture and preservation issues, and I used Phocaena obtusata as an example of this. Because preserved specimens do not age gracefully, putting observations to paper based on them is risky. Daniel Eschricht (1798-1863), who I was also researching, seemed very fond of wet specimens, which I suspect preserve the anatomy better. But, as with many marine species, whale colouration is fickle and not easily preserved, making live or recently dead individuals the best references.

This description also introduced me to the word tunina, also spelt tonina and toninha and seemingly used in both Spanish and Portuguese. This appears to be a regional name for porpoise-like cetaceans. It is similar to the Dutch word tonyn, used for the Harbour Porpoise, but I’m unsure if/how it is related.

 

Phocaena albiventris - now regarded as Cephalorhynchus eutropia, the Chilean Dolphin - illustrated by Philippi

 

This species is one of a few “paper whales” that has a paper dedicated to it, specifically “Goodall, R. N. P., A. P. Sobral, M. Labal de Vinuesa, and I. S. Cameron. 1988b. On Phocoena obtusata, with a comparison of certain diagnostic characters in South American phocoenids and the genus Cephalorhynchus. Rep. Int. Whal. Comm. (special issue) 9:259–276.” In this paper the team comes to the conclusion that the porpoise described by Philippi is actually Cephalorhynchus eutropia, the Chilean Dolphin. However, I cannot find this damn paper. This is the first one that’s truly evaded me, I’ve found every source I’ve needed to up until this point and I guess I’ve just been incredibly lucky. At some point I may get desperate and try reaching out to random scientists but if anybody can find me a copy of this paper, I’d be very appreciative.

This is a whale I’ve wanted to draw for quite a while but was procrastinating on it despite that. I took a bit of artistic liberty in interpreting the lighter band around the colour division in the original illustration as a band of grey, which I thought gives the porpoise a very 1970s vibe. The Chilean Dolphin does have a white belly, but the white does not come up the side of the dolphin in lobes.

It’s hard to pick a favourite, but this might be my favourite “paper whale” in terms of appearance.

Image source - WWF