Such survival rates are unknown amongst odontocetes. It seems more likely that the school stranded in 1981 was somehow reproductively compromised, and not typical of the population as a whole: only examination of further material from southern African false killer whales will resolve this issue. Both the shore-driven

and stranded samples are characterized by a hiatus in the age distribution of males (between 10 and 19 yr and 5 and 18 yr, respectively; Fig. 3) and an apparent gap between immature and mature males (i.e., few maturing individuals). Kasuya (1986) suggested that this discontinuity in shore-driven groups is due to the absence of males in the late maturing stage (two early maturing males were present but no late maturing males). However, the stranded St. Helena Bay school contained no early maturing but two late maturing

males, suggesting that the absence may involve maturing males in general. Koen Alonso et al. Pritelivir (1999) reported that amongst 91 animals examined from a mass stranding of 181 false killer whales in Chile there were only large and small animals and that larger juveniles and subadults were absent: measurements given for a sample of 33 suggest this applied to both sexes. Kasuya and Marsh (1984) reported a similar shortage of maturing males for short-finned pilot whales stranded or caught off Olaparib in vivo the Pacific coast of Japan (and a scarcity of maturing and young mature males is also apparent in schools of long-finned pilot whales driven ashore at the

Faroe Islands; Desportes et al. 1993). However, unlike in Kasuya and Marsh’s (1984) study, there does not appear to be an aggregation of maturing males in any single shore-driven school in this study (although few in number). School 4 (which contained four males and only two females), had only one immature male, aged 1.5 yr, and three adult males, all over 26 yr of age. The dispersal pattern of male false killer whales from their natal school is unknown. The presence of maturing and mature males, albeit in small numbers, of various ages and body lengths in both samples suggests that some maturing males might leave their breeding school at least temporarily, but that at least one or MCE公司 a few males may remain with, or return to their natal group, in line with the evidence for strong social bonds and long term association and philopatry (Acevedo-Gutierrez et al. 1997, Baird et al. 2008). Alternatively, these maturing and adult males may be unrelated to the rest of the group and have emigrated from other breeding schools. The formation of bachelor groupings like sperm whales, or as observed in at least one case for long-finned pilot whales (Desportes et al. 1994), has not yet been observed at mass strandings or in drive fisheries for false killer whales, leading to speculation that these males may rove singly or in very small groups.