Angelico Jose Cavada Tiongson

Seabirds forage in the air-water interface and have adapted various feeding techniques to exploit resources at or beneath the surface. Here I present photographic evidence of a novel feeding technique by an Eastern Common Tern Sterna hirundo longipennis: the capture of an airborne flying squid. Terns are generally plunge-divers for fish or shrimp,...

Global marine mammal research is disproportionately lacking compared to terrestrial mammal research and is strongly biased toward populations in Europe, North America, New Zealand, and Australia. With high extinction risks facing marine mammals in the tropics, we sought to identify potential drivers of research effort and extinction risk evaluation...

For over two centuries there were no records of Blue Whales Balaenoptera musculus in the Philippines. Whalers recorded Blue Whales in the Philippines in the 19th century, and the next confirmed sighting in the country was of a mother and calf in 2004. Since then 33 subsequent Blue Whale sightings of potentially one individual were recorded between...

Humpback whales wintering in the northern Philippines belong to the western North Pacific subpopulation, now recognized as a distinct population segment. The numbers for this subpopulation are low and in the Philippines threats are apparent in the breeding ground. We are presenting the spatial and temporal distribution of humpback whales in the Bab...

For over two centuries there were no records of blue whales in the Philippines. Although whalers recorded blue whales in the Philippines in the 19th century, the first confirmed sighting in the country was in 2004. Fifteen subsequent blue whale sightings were recorded between 2008 and 2017, centered on the central region of the Philippines around t...

Very little is known of the spatio-behavioural dynamics of island-associated cetaceans, and even less so about multi-species communities such as those seen in Tañon Strait, central Philippines. Declared as a protected seascape in 1998, Tañon Strait is a semi-enclosed body of water characterized by a narrow coastal zone and considerable depths relat...

Previous sightings of bottlenose dolphins in Tañon Strait, central Philippines, in the late 1980’s to early 1990’s were limited to the southern section of the strait, in waters <500 m deep, and the species was formerly identified as Tursiops truncatus. Photo-identification surveys (n = 117) conducted in 2014 and 2015 in Tañon Strait resulted in 50...

In coastal waters of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis) is thought to number approximately 2500 individuals. Given these figures, the putative PRD population may appear strong enough to resist demographic stochasticity and environmental pressures. However, living in close proximity to the world's...

Conference poster

Two morphotypes of Halophila spinulosa were collected from Ilacaon Island, Negros Occidental, Philip-pines and measured for the following morphological characters: number of leaf pairs per shoot, cross veins, and serrations at outer leaf margin, and leaf length, width, and leaf fold length. Morphotype A conformed to the description of Brown (1810)....

Mixed-species associations are common occurrences for small cetaceans globally and the northwest Bohol Sea is no exemption - a likely deep, nearshore daytime resting area. Results from surveys conducted within three years showed a pattern of species mixing. EIght species were encountered, in decreasing frequency: melon-headed whale Peponocphala ele...

A population of a peculiar morph of Halophila spinulosa was observed during a survey of dugong grazed sites in Ilacaon Island off northern Negros Occidental in 2005. The overall gross morphology of this type resembled that of the H. spinulosa as described from the type specimen, but the leaves are much wider (mean width = 6.18 mm, SD = 0.72) and ha...

This study aimed to systematically differentiate two populations of Halophila spinulosa (R.Brown) Ascherson collected from a mixed seagrass bed at Ilacaon Island of Cadiz City, Negros Occidental, Philippines. Measurements of diagnostic characters were taken from population A and population B. Leaf width, total leaf length, leaf fold length, distanc...