Thermal reference points as an index for monitoring body temperature in marine mammals

BMC Research Notes

Table 1 Temperature values of marine mammals measured by thermography

	Patagonian sea lion	Harbour seal	Pacific walrus	Bottlenose dolphin	Beluga whale
Rectal	37.07 ± 0.058	–	36.22 ± 0.383	36.75 ± 0.369	35.68 ± 0.184
Ears	–	22.81 ± 6.030	–
Eyes
Overall	10 min 31.13 ± 1.706 0.873*	10 min 32.27 ± 0.901	5 min 29.93 ± 1.015 0.599*	1 min 32.93 ± 1.053 0.801*	1 min 32.14 ± 0.847 0.607*
Males	31.38 ± 1.518	32.89 ± 0.352	=	=	x
Females	29.56 ± 1.448	31.49 ± 0.756	=	=	x
Pups	22.29 ± 2.344	21.73 ± 1.972	x	x	x
Adults	28.55 ± 2.885	27.07 ± 5.434	x	x	x
Vibrissal area
Overall	26.23 ± 4.220	23.54 ± 6.764	23.75 ± 3.739
Males	27.37 ± 3.641	29.91 ± 4.779	=
Females	24.29 ± 2.778	18.04 ± 1.757	=
Pups	18.94 ± 1.323	18.11 ± 1.445	x
Adults	26.20 ± 3.649	25.32 ± 6.879	x
Mouth	–	–	30.89 ± 3.191
Blowhole
Voluntary
Perpendicular				36.86 ± 0.297 0.997*	34.73 ± 0.665 0.994*
Inclined				33.5 ± 2.246	33.21 ± 1.537
On demand
Perpendicular				33.92 ± 1.256 0.448*	31.82 ± 0.670 0.876*
Inclined				30.06 ± 2.098	28.76 ± 1.687

Maximum temperatures (mean ± standard deviation) of each analysed anatomical region of the five species of marine mammals, displayed in Celsius degrees (°C). [Patagonian sea lion (Otaria flavescens), harbour seal (Phoca vitulina), Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens), bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas)]
–: Not enough valuable thermal measurements were collected
=: Differences were found not to be significant using a Kruskal–Wallis test (p < 0.05)
x: Not enough individuals of different gender or age were studied to estimate these parameters
* Correlation with rectal temperature

ISSN: 1756-0500