Abstract
WHAT is the “thresher”? It is generally assumed to be the fox-shark (Alopias vulpes), but in a recent number of Land and Water—which I have only just seen—Mr. Frank Buckland says that he believes it to be “the gladiator dolphin or sword grampus” (Orca gladiator). This he infers from a drawing of Lord A. Campbell's, of which he gives a copy. The tail, he says, is not that of the fox-shark. But as it is heterocercal it cannot be that of a grampus or any other Cetacean. Whatever it is I suppose that there is no doubt that it throws itself out of the water (“high as the masthead” [of a trawler] one of Mr. Buckland's correspondents avers). Does it do so more than once? Once, many years ago, between Sydney and New Zealand, I saw, what they said was a fight between a thresher and a whale, but there was nothing to be seen beyond a splashing of the water. Last year off Lisbon I witnessed a similar event. Does the sword-fish also attack the whale? Lord A. Campbell, in the letter accompanying his drawing, estimated the length of his thresher at “upwards of thirty feet;” this is twice the length given by Yarrell.
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PASCOE, F. The Thresher. Nature 23, 35 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/023035d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023035d0
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