text: Hg levels in dolphins stranded in Apulia (Cardellicchio et al., 2000, 2002), on the Corsician coast (Frodello et al., 2000), on the Mediterranean coast of Israel (Roditi-Elasar et al., 2003), on Spanish and Italian Mediterranean coasts (Monaci et al., 1998) are lower than those found in our study and dolphins from the French Mediterranean, Ligurian Sea and Northern Tyrrhenian coasts (Leonzio et al., 1992; Augier et al., 1993; Capelli et al., 2000, 2008).