#MarineWildlife - Two pilot whales suffocated after getting fish stuck in their blowholes – the first known record of such happenings since in over 400 years.
According to New Scientist, both whales met their end a year ago while their pod was hunting for flatfish in the waters between the UK and Belgium.
Examination of a carcass that washed up in the Netherlands six weeks after the pod was spotted revealed that its blowhole, necessary for breathing, was blocked by a common sole.
When the same thing was found in another dead pilot whale a few weeks later, researcher Lonneke IJsseldijk couldn't believe her eyes.
“When I got to the beach the second time, I saw this tail sticking out of the blowhole and I thought: ‘No way!’”
Flatfish are not the usual diet for deepwater cetaceans like the pilot whale, which normally feeds on cephalopods, but it's thought they may have had to adapt their diet in shallower seas.
It's not known what brought the pod so far from their usual North Atlantic haunts, though climate change may be a factor.
Unfortunately for these whales, the common sole is not so easily consumed, and their efforts to escape the whales may have caused their much larger predators' demise.
New Scientist has much more on the story HERE.
Pilot whales are regular visitors to Ireland's western shores, but strandings are not unusual either, with five whales dying after a mass stranding by a 13-string pod in Donegal in July 2014.
More recently, a trio of pilot whales were refloated after stranding in West Kerry this past August.
