‘Exceptionally rare’ conjoined whale calves found in Baja lagoon

Mexican fishermen discovered a rare pair of conjoined gray whale calves floating in a Baja California lagoon this week, in what could be the first documented case for the species.

The twins were found on January 5th, floating in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon. They were alive at the time, according to what National Commission for Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) marine biologist Benito Bermudez told the Associated Press, but they died only a few hours after they were discovered. According to Australia's ABC News, Bermudez said that the find was "exceptionally rare, without any precedent" for the area.

From the video and still photographs of the whales, they were joined at the stomach, with two separate heads and two separate tails. Since whales are air-breathing mammals, they would have to surface to draw breath. However, the way these two were joined, with their blowholes pointed off to either side, surfacing for air would have been very difficult for them. According to National Geographic, Jim Dines, a scientist from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said that they likely wouldn't have survived, even if they weren't premature.

Dines also said that, based on their size — between three and four metres long — the twins may have been premature, born between three and five months too early. However, he told National Geographic that since the mother was providing for two fetuses at once, they may have simply been small for their age (normal gestation is about 13.5 months).

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The mother whale was apparently not found, so it's unclear if she survived the birth of her calves. According to the Associated Press, samples of skin, muscle and baleen tissue were taken from the twins for study.

Once concern that could be raised about the cause of this rare discovery is radiation leaking into the Pacific Ocean from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. However, there is plenty of information available on the true extent of the spread of that radiation, and none of it points to there being any effects on the west coast of North America.

"In the past year or so, when we have marine mammals that strand here in California and we've had the tissues tested for radiation, there's nothing there," Dines told National Geographic.

"I'm not going to say it's impossible," he added. "[But] we've looked and looked and looked, [and] we've seen zero evidence of radiation affecting cetaceans."

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