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Historic and recent occurrences of pinnipeds in the Archipelago of the Azores
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Orientador(es)
Resumo(s)
The Archipelago of the Azores (Portugal) is located
between 378 and 418N and 258 and 318W and crosses
the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It is the most isolated archipelago
in the Atlantic, situated 1600 km west of mainland
Portugal and 3500 km from the eastern coast of the United
States of America. At present, the only population of
seals occurring in the Portuguese territory is found on
Desertas Islands, Archipelago of Madeira, where a colony
of 24 Mediterranean monk seals, Monachus monachus
(Hermann, 1779), still persists (Pires and Neves 2001).
Nonetheless, historical accounts reported by Frutuoso
(1983) dating from the early to late 1500s mention sightings
of ‘‘sea wolves’’ (the old Portuguese folk term for the
Mediterranean monk seal) at several sites along the Azorean
Island of Santa Maria. Little is known about the
occurrence of monk seals in this area over the past five
centuries, but the species certainly did not escape deliberate
killing by the first settlers. While the early monk seal
reports by Frutuoso (1983) are the only reports referring
to the presence of colonies of seals in the Azores, more
recently several sightings and strandings of vagrant seals
of other species have been noted.
Descrição
Palavras-chave
Azores Extralimital records Monachus monachus Pinnipeds
Contexto Educativo
Citação
Silva MA, Brito C, Santos SV & Barreiros JP (2009) Occurrence of pinnipeds in the Archipelago of the Azores: a checklist since Discovery until Present. Mammalia, 73: 60-62. (doi: 10.1515/MAMM.2009.008)