Diet and fish selection of pantropical spotted dolphin and bottlenose dolphin in association with deep shrimp trawler

fishery in the central Pacific of Costa Rica Palacios-Alfaro, J. D.1,2 (1) Fundacin KETO. San Jos, Costa Rica. Apdo. 1735-1002. (2) Escuela de Ciencias Biolgicas, Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. Heredia, Costa Rica. Apdo. 86-3000. dpalacios@fundacionketo.org The pantropical spotted dolphin (Stenella attenuata) and bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) are the more common sighted dolphins in the Pacific coastal waters of Costa Rica, in the central Pacific waters this species have interactions with deep shrimp trawlers. The primary focus of this study was investige the diet and fish selection of dolphins species, the survey was aboard of deep shrimp trawler boat from December 2004 to March 2005 in the outer part of the Nicoya Gulf and abjacent waters, the median deep of the trawlings was upper of 200 m. In this survey period 132 groups was sightings (26 S. attenuata, 106 T. truncatus). For every dolphins species the 73% of groups have associations with the deep shrimp trawler boat. Tweny one fish species was founded in the trawl net (3 Elasmobranchii, 18 Actinopterygii). The pantropical spotted dolphin take 6 fish species of bony fish from 4 families and bottlenose dolphins cath 13 fish species (2 Elasmobranchii, 11 Actinopterygii) from 10 families. The preferred fishes cacth by dolphins were Peprilus medius, P. snyderi, Gymnothorax equatorialis, G. phalarus and Ophichthus ramiger, this fishes were present in more of the 95% of trawlings. Some fishes were present in the same proportion but no was selected by dolphins (eg. Macrouridae, Peristediidae), this fishes have hard structures in the head or body that are converse charasterictic to the preferred fish. In general the two dolphins species have preference for fish without spines in yours fins and scaleless bodies or little scales (eg. Muraenidae, Stromatidae), this could facilitate the digestion because of the absence of hard external structures.