IMMRAC marine mammal sightings from the Mediterranean's Levantine Basin

Occurrence Observation
Latest version published by OBIS-SEAMAP on Oct 8, 2025 OBIS-SEAMAP

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 105 records in English (16 KB) - Update frequency: not planned
Metadata as an EML file download in English (16 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (12 KB)

Description

Original provider: Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center (IMMRAC) Dataset credits: Nir Hadar, Oz Goffman, Aviad Scheinin and Dani Kerem, Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center (IMMRAC) Abstract: IMMRAC is a purely voluntary registered nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of cetacean populations in the Eastern Mediterranean and in the noethern Red Sea, through scientific research and public education. IMMRAC is a partner of ACCOBAMS. Research activities are under the academic auspices of the Institute for Maritime Studies, School of Marine Sciences in the University of Haifa. Open Sea research activity along the 190 km-long Israeli Mediterranean coast is conducted throughout the year, weather permitting. It focuses on the socio-ecology of the resident bottlenose dolphin population through half-day surveys from inflatable boats and private yachts. Due to logistic reasons, open sea research in the Red Sea is opportunistic and sporadic.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 105 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Kerem, D. 2014. IMMRAC marine mammal sightings from the Mediterranean's Levantine Basin. Version 1.5.0. Dataset published in OBIS-SEAMAP. https://doi.org/10.82144/ffda027c.

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is OBIS-SEAMAP. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 79de9b5f-24f0-4f1f-9f54-81148f08d382.  OBIS-SEAMAP publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.

Keywords

Occurrence; Observation; Marine Biology; Visual sighting; Vessels; Sightings; Occurrence

External data

The resource data is also available in other formats

OBIS-SEAMAP Dataset Page https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/819 UTF-8 Interactive map
FGDC Metadata https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/819/fgdc UTF-8 XML
EML Metadata https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/819/eml UTF-8 XML

Contacts

Dani Kerem
  • Owner
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
  • Primary contact
IMMRAC (Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center)
OBIS-SEAMAP
  • Metadata Provider
  • Distributor
Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Duke University
  • A328 LSRC building
27708 Durham
NC
US
ACCOBAMS and WDCS
  • Originator
The Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS) and Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS)

Geographic Coverage

Western Pacific

Bounding Coordinates South West [31.35, 28.5], North East [36.35, 36.35]

Taxonomic Coverage

Scientific names are based on the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).

Species Balaenoptera acutorostrata (Common minke whale), Balaenoptera physalus (Fin whale), Delphinus delphis (Short-beaked common dolphin), Grampus griseus (Risso's dolphin), Physeter macrocephalus (Sperm whale), Pseudorca crassidens (False killer whale), Stenella coeruleoalba (Striped dolphin), Steno bredanensis (Rough-toothed dolphin)

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 1993-07-26 / 2014-03-02

Project Data

No Description available

Title IMMRAC marine mammal sightings from the Mediterranean's Levantine Basin
Funding NA

The personnel involved in the project:

Dani Kerem
  • Owner

Sampling Methods

NA

Study Extent NA

Method step description:

  1. NA

Collection Data

Collection Name zd_819
Collection Identifier zd_819
Parent Collection Identifier OBIS-SEAMAP

Bibliographic Citations

  1. D. Kerem, N. Hadar, O. Goffman, A. Scheinin, R. Kent, O. Boisseau, U. Schattner. 2012. Update on the cetacean fauna of the Mediterranean Levantine Basin. Open Marine Biology Journal6:6-27.

Additional Metadata

marine, harvested by iOBIS. [2014-03-27] Sightings in 2012-2014 were appended. The activity column was added in this period whereas the seastate and comments columns were not provided. Some records had estimates, minimums, or ranges for group sizes - these were converted to numbers, minimum + 1, or the median number (rounded down), respectively, for the number of animals observed.

Purpose

IMMRAC collates shore-based and boat-based cetacean sightings, the latter from dedicated surveys as well as from platforms of opportunity, made by its own staff or reported to it by other parties. The latter are mostly backed by photographs/videos or else, are indisputably accredited through careful interrogation by IMMRAC experts in real time and/or soon after the sighting, aided by a pictorial guide.

Alternative Identifiers https://doi.org/10.82144/ffda027c
https://www.gbif.org/dataset/79de9b5f-24f0-4f1f-9f54-81148f08d382
https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/819
https://obis.org/dataset/6b36d908-9036-46a6-b607-0808da6f7134
79de9b5f-24f0-4f1f-9f54-81148f08d382
https://ipt.env.duke.edu/resource?r=zd_819