whales

The secret lives of whales

Using genetics, Navy sonar, deep-sea submersibles, and toxicology, scientists are peering into the lives of whales ?past and present ?in ways never before possible. At a 3:00 PM press conference on February 19th at the annual meeting of AAAS, Steve Palumbi of Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station, Christopher W. Clark of Cornell University, Craig Smith of the University of Hawaii and Roger Payne of t...

Habitat use by North Pacific right whales, Eubalaena japonica, in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska

The small population of North Pacific right whales, found during the summer in Alaska waters, is one of the most critically endangered whale populations in the world. Commercial whaling in the 1800s has now left us with only a few dozens. Recently these whales have been recognized as a different species from right whales seen in the North Atlantic and others in the Southern Hemisphere. To...

Warbling whales speak a language all their own

The songs of the humpback whale are among the most complex in the animal kingdom. Researchers have now mathematically confirmed that whales have their own syntax that uses sound units to build phrases that can be combined to form songs that last for hours. Until now, only humans have demonstrated the ability to use such a hierarchical structure of communication. The research, published onl...

Research tracks whales by listening to sounds

Researchers have developed a new tool to help them study endangered whales ?autonomous hydrophones that can be deployed in the ocean to record the unique clicks, pulses and calls of different whale species. "There has been only...

Underwater listening devices yield discoveries about endangered large whales

Why whales emit their characteristic calls remains largely a biological mystery, but listening for the distinctive underwater sounds provides a valuable way to track the movements of endangered large whales. Autonomous data-recording devices equipped with hydrophones (underwater microphones), deployed in remote waters off Alaska, have been used in recent years to track seasonal occurrences of bl...

Ecologists home in on how sperm whales find their prey

Ecologists have at last got a view of sperm whales' behaviour during their long, deep dives, thanks to the use of recently developed electronic "dtags". According to new research published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Animal Ecology, sperm whales ?like bats ?use echolocation consistently to track down their prey at depth. Working in the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and...

How ancient whales lost their legs, got sleek and conquered the oceans

When ancient whales finally parted company with the last remnants of their legs about 35 million years ago, a relatively sudden genetic event may have crowned an eons-long shrinking process. An international group of scientists led by Hans Thewissen, Ph.D., a professor of anatomy at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, has used developmental data from contemporary spotted do...

Save the whales? Sure, but how many?

How many wildebeest should live in the Serengeti" How many grizzly bears should call Yellowstone home" Are there too few tigers in the world" Conservationist biologists grapple with the task of setting population targets for the species they are trying to protect ?a decision steeped in politics, emotion, and sometimes, science. In a new paper appearing in the journal Bioscience, the New...

Humpback whales have brain cells also found in humans

Cetaceans, the group of marine mammals that includes whales and dolphins, have demonstrated remarkable auditory and communicative abilities, as well as complex social behaviors. A new study published online November 27, 2006 in The Anatomical Record, the official journal of the American Association of Anatomists,compared a humpback whale brain with brains from several other cetacean species and f...

Saving endangered whales at no cost

By comparing the productivity of lobster fishing operations in American and Canadian waters of the Gulf of Maine, researchers have identified ways in which cost-saving alterations in fishing strategies can substantially reduce fishing-gear entanglements of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. The findings appear in the January 9th issue of the journal Current Biology, published b...

Tracking sperm whales and jumbo squid

The sperm whale and its large prey, the jumbo squid, are among the deepest divers in the ocean, routinely reaching depths of 3,000 feet or more. Now, in a new study, a team of marine scientists reports the successful tagging of sperm whales and jumbo squid swimming together off Mexico’s Pacific coast—the first time that electronic tracking devices have been applied simultaneously to deep-diving p...

DNA analysis suggests under-reported kills of threatened whales

A new study analyzing whale meat sold in Korean markets suggests the number of whales being sold for human consumption in the Asian country is much higher than that being reported to the International Whaling Commission ?putting threatened populations of coastal minke whales further at risk. The study, involving numerous researchers led by Scott Baker of Oregon State University, was just p...