Previously Undocumented Long-Finned Pilot Whale (Globicephala melas) Placental Expulsion in Coastal Waters of Shetland, United Kingdom

This paper describes the first documented observa-tion of placental expulsion by a long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala melas), which was captured on video by an unmanned aerial system (UAS) in coastal waters of the Shetland Isles, Scotland, United Kingdom. The advent and development of UAS technology provides novel opportunities to observe and document biologically significant events that are challenging, if not impossible, to observe via boat or from land (Ransome et al., 2022).Around Scotland, long-finned pilot whales show a strong association for deep water off the con-tinental shelf edge (Weir et al., 2001; Hammond et al., 2017; Rogan et al., 2017) and thus are relatively infrequently sighted in coastal Scottish waters. Due to the logistical challenges of study-ing pelagic species, the understanding of some attributes of long-finned pilot whales remains limited, with courtship, mating, and parturition poorly described and rarely (if ever) observed. Therefore, the identification of Shetland’s coastal waters as a site of placental expulsion provides new insights for the North Atlantic population of long-finned pilot whales.