A dolphin spotted in the Slovenian sea for the first time on 8 February 2020 was sighted in the Ligurian Sea, more than 2,000 kilometres away, only six months later, which makes him a world record holder in terms of the distance travelled.

It was members of the marine mammal research association Morigenos who first spotted the dolphin in the Bay of Piran, naming him Prešeren after Slovenia's greatest poet France Prešeren, whose death anniversary was marked that day.

Together with their Italian counterparts, the Slovenian researchers were able to document his voyages, finding that coastal ecotype bottlenose dolphins are much more mobile than previously believed.

Recognised by his fin, Prešeren was last seen in the Bay of Piran in March 2020.

"In an online meeting later I spotted that familiar fin in a talk given by a fellow researcher who discussed dolphins in the Tyrrhenian Sea, only to find that it was the very same dolphin," Morigenos member Tilen Genov has recently told TV Slovenija.

This was surprising because it meant Prešeren must have covered a distance of more than 1,000 kilometres to reach Piran. The sighting in the Aeolian Islands area, north of Sicily, was from between 2006 and 2017.

But then it transpired that Prešeren is even more of a long-distance dolphin, because he later travelled from Piran to the Ligurian Sea, north of Corsica.

This journey is considered the longest recorded distance travelled by the coastal ecotype bottlenose dolphin to date and the second longest among bottlenose dolphins, the Piran-based association said.

These dolphins are considered a species where most of the animals remain in their home environment, but Prešeren's case indicates they are more avid travellers than previously thought, Tilen Genov, the leading researcher in the study, told the STA.

The findings are important in terms of gene flow between populations, which is vital for the long-term conservation of dolphins. Morigenos also noted the importance of international cooperation in protecting biodiversity because working together is essential to ensure healthy ecosystems given that animals move across national borders.

The study tracing Prešeren's journeys has recently been published in the journal Mammalian Biology.

Active since 2001, Morigenos focuses on researching and protecting the common bottlenose dolphin in the northern Adriatic. More than 400 dolphin specimens have been identified so far, of which around 150 reside in the Piran area permanently.