Fig. 1

Shepherd's beaked whale (Tasmacetus shepherdi) ocurrence in the South Atlantic. The top panel represents relative probabilities of occurrence (on a scale of 0 to 1) for Shepherd’s beaked whale Tasmacetus shepherdi derived from the relative environmental suitability (RES) model developed by (Kaschner et al. 2006). Values were retrieved from the AquaMaps online platform (Kaschner et al. 2008). Low probability values are shaded in blue, and high ones in gold. The bottom panel is a map of published Shepherd’s beaked whale records within the Tristan da Cunha Island group and Gough Island (inset, located ca. 400 km SE of the main island group). Both live sightings (gold) and reported strandings (white) are shown, with circle diameter proportional to group size. The sighting described in the present study is also denoted with a red outline. The depth surface is derived from General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) available at 30 arc sec resolution (Becker et al. 2009). Basemap tile source: ESRI