Study finds vaquitas are unlikely to be heavily impacted by inbreeding depression that can often undermine the survival of small populations, and have a high probability to recover if deaths in gillnets are immediately halted.
Genetic samples the team collected will help determine whether this animal, with its distinctly different color pattern and body shape, is indeed new to science. See amazing video footage of the whales below.
According to new research, an ice age that ended over 100,000 years ago confined the world’s sperm whales to a single population in the Pacific Ocean, creating a genetic bottleneck.
