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Dead dolphins on a beach in Mozambique
Photo: ANAC
According to the authorities, 111 dolphins have been found dead on land in Mozambique.
86 animals were discovered on the beach of an island that belongs to a nature reserve in the south of the country, according to a statement from the national agency for nature conservation ANAC.
25 dolphins were found in the same marine park in the Bazaruto archipelago on Sunday.
What the dolphins died of is still unclear.
The animals showed no injuries and there was no obvious cause of death.
Samples had been brought to a laboratory for further investigation, it said.
In addition, experts should travel to the area on Wednesday to investigate the incidents.
The area around Bazaruto is the oldest marine park in the Southeast African country and was created in 1971.
Over 2000 species of fish as well as several other marine life, birds and reptiles live in the 1,430 square kilometer area.
Comparable cases in Namibia and the USA
Such mass extinction among dolphins is unfortunately not a new phenomenon.
As recently as March last year, 86 black dolphins were found dead off the coast of Namibia.
The protection organization Namibian Dolphin Project had stated at the time that the phenomenon in the South African country was absolutely unusual.
Something similar happened on France's Atlantic coast a month earlier.
In the USA, too, comparable cases keep puzzling: in 2015, more than 400 dolphins died on the east coast within a few months; it was the largest dolphin death in the USA in a quarter of a century.
Back then, in 1987/1988, around 750 animals had died between New Jersey and Florida.
Investigations showed that the animals had died of a virus.
After the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, significantly more dead marine mammals were also washed ashore on some stretches of coast than in previous years.
Researchers suspected that the dolphins were suffering from the long-term effects of the oil spill.
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bam / dpa