Resident
Short-finned pilot whale
Globicephala macrorhynchus
The reason this stretch of coast works. Around 350 live here year-round, diving to a thousand metres to hunt squid.
4–6 m↓ 1.000 m
Whales and dolphins you can see in Tenerife
More than twenty species have been recorded in these waters. Two of them live here. This is what each one is, when it turns up, and how likely you are to meet it.
The Canary Islands sit on deep water in the path of an Atlantic current system, and that combination produces one of the richest cetacean communities in Europe. The waters off south Tenerife in particular hold a resident population of short-finned pilot whales that has been studied for decades — the reason the Teno-Rasca strip carries protected status.
What follows is grouped by how likely you are to actually see each animal, which is more useful than an alphabetical list. Each card shows residency and typical diving depth: those two numbers explain most of what you need to know.
Residents — here every month
These two are why the sighting rate is what it is.
Resident
Bottlenose dolphin
Tursiops truncatus
Big, curious and often in the mood to ride the bow wave. Resident groups move along the whole south coast.
2,5–4 m↓ 300 m
Resident
Loggerhead turtle
Caretta caretta
Often asleep at the surface. Juveniles cross the Atlantic from Cape Verde and Florida and spend years feeding off these islands.
80–110 cm↓ 100 m
Seasonal visitors
Present for part of the year, on a fairly reliable schedule.
Seasonal
Atlantic spotted dolphin
Stenella frontalis
Fast, acrobatic and usually in numbers. Spots appear with age, so a group is a range of pale to heavily freckled.
1,7–2,3 m↓ 60 m
Seasonal
Common dolphin
Delphinus delphis
Travels in large, noisy groups. The hourglass pattern on the flank is the giveaway when they turn.
1,7–2,4 m↓ 200 m
Seasonal
Rorquals
Balaenoptera sp.
The big baleen whales that pass through. You see the back and the small dorsal first, then a long slow roll. Telling the species apart takes a good look — the biologist on board will call it.
9–15 m↓ 300 m
Occasional and rare
Real, recorded and worth knowing about — but never something to book on.
Occasional
Rough-toothed dolphin
Steno bredanensis
Unmistakable once you know it: no crease between beak and melon, so the head runs in one clean cone.
2–2,6 m↓ 150 m
Occasional
Blainville's beaked whale
Mesoplodon densirostris
One of the deepest divers on Earth and one of the least seen. Surfaces briefly, then goes back down for the best part of an hour.
4–5 m↓ 1.400 m
Rare
Orca
Orcinus orca
Real but rare: a handful of encounters a year, usually in spring. Anyone promising you orcas in Tenerife is selling something.
5–8 m↓ 200 m
Rare
Blue whale
Balaenoptera musculus
The largest animal that has ever lived, and an exceptional sighting. It happens here — a few times, in spring, on migration.
22–27 m↓ 200 m
Also recorded here
Not every species has a card yet. Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are deep-water specialists that turn up sporadically in the channel; false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) appear in fast-moving groups a few times a year; striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) are common further offshore than most tours go. Minke whales appear occasionally and are among the least documented visitors to these waters.
Alongside the cetaceans you will usually see Cory's shearwaters working the surface, and in summer flying fish breaking ahead of the bow.
How the guide identifies them
Species identification at sea is not done from the whole animal — you rarely see the whole animal. It is done from the shape of the dorsal fin, the angle of the back as it rolls, the shape and direction of the blow, and the behaviour of the group. A biologist on board can also identify individual pilot whales from the nicks and scars along the trailing edge of the fin, which is how the resident population has been catalogued over the years.
Questions about the species
How many species live around Tenerife?
More than twenty cetacean species have been recorded in Canary waters, out of roughly ninety known worldwide. Only two of them are properly resident off south Tenerife; the rest are seasonal visitors or occasional passers-by.
What will I definitely see?
Nobody honest will use the word definitely. But short-finned pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins live here permanently, and one or both turn up on the overwhelming majority of departures.
Are pilot whales whales or dolphins?
Dolphins, technically — they belong to the family Delphinidae, along with orcas and false killer whales. "Whale" here is a size convention rather than a taxonomic one.
2 h · max 10€60 per adult
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