The whales were cruising through the water and approached the boat as close as 2m. The surfacing sequence was captured using a digital still camera (Image 2). The whale did not lift its flukes when diving. Three whales, which were sighted earlier in the same region during April 2009 (by the first author), had similar dorsal fins and rolling patterns; it is uncertain whether or not these were the same individuals.
Bryde’s Whales are the only non-migratory species of Baleen Whale. They are found in the tropics and sub-tropics (Barlow 2006). The nearest known Bryde’s Whale population from the Odisha coast is 500km north in the Bangladesh region of the Swatch-of-No-Ground (SoNG) submarine canyon (Smith et al. 2008). Genetic evidence from the MtDNA control region of 38 tissue samples from Bryde’s Whales in the SoNG indicates the presence of the small edeni form; however, the same analysis also included a single tissue sample of a Bryde’s Whale that stranded