He La Tahonilla Wildlife Recovery Centerdependent on the Natural Environment Management area of the Cabildo de Tenerifeinaugurated the skeleton of a pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) recomposed by the marine biologist Manuel Carrillo, who died in 2021 at the age of 64, to whom a tribute was paid,
The animal beached in 2019 in Theresitas and, after a long process, the skeleton was reconstructed. Carrillo, one of the researchers with the most knowledge about cetaceans in the Archipelago, was the architect, among other projects, of the path of cetaceans in Fuerteventura. His widow, Josefa Esther Medina, received during the ceremony a small box with a silver pendant representing the last vertebra of the pilot whale, as a tribute to the scientist.
Carrillo maintained a great relationship with La Tahonilla. Since the 90s of the last century, his professional life has been oriented in a very special way to the study of marine mammals. He has participated since 1991 in the Canary Network of Stranded Cetaceans. A year later he began a line of taxonomic research work, through the osteological description of stranded cetaceans. Around that time, he also carried out his first works assembling skeletons, being responsible for those of whales that can be seen in Los Silos and in the Charco de San Ginés, in Lanzarote.
Manuel Carrillo was also in charge of the spectacular assembly of the Llanca Whalea fin whale that washed up on the Catalan coast more than 150 years ago and is currently on display suspended from the ceiling of the Blau, the new building of the Museum of Natural Sciences in Barcelona.
