Dolphins who's who: a statistical perspective

  • Authors:
  • Teresa Barata;Steve P. Brooks

  • Affiliations:
  • Statistical Laboratory, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, UK;Statistical Laboratory, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, UK

  • Venue:
  • SCIA'05 Proceedings of the 14th Scandinavian conference on Image Analysis
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

When studying animal behaviour and ecology the recognition of individuals is very important and in the case of bottlenose dolphins this can be done via photo-identification of their dorsal fins. Here we develop a mathematical model that describes this fin shape which is then fitted to the data by a Bayesian approach implemented using MCMC methods. This project is still at a testing stage and we are currently working with simulated data. Future work includes: extracting the outline of the fin shape from the pictures; fitting the model to real data; and devising a way of using the model to discriminate between individuals.