upworthy

whales

Nature

Here's the first ever footage of a baby sperm whale nursing from its mother

How baby sperm whales nurse has been a scientific mystery for decades.

National Geographic/YouTube

We know that mammals feed their young with milk from their own bodies, and we know that whales are mammals. But the logistics of how some whales make breastfeeding happen has been a bit of a mystery for scientists. Such has been the case with sperm whales.

Sperm whales are uniquely shaped, with humongous, block-shaped heads that house the largest brains in the animal world. Like other cetaceans, sperm whale babies rely on their mother's milk for sustenance in their first year or two. And also like other cetaceans, a sperm whale mama's nipple is inverted—it doesn't stick out from her body like many mammals, but rather is hidden inside a mammary slit.

Most whale and dolphin babies nudge the mammary slit to expose the nipple, allowing them to "suckle." A sperm whale baby's head and mouth aren't really designed for suckling in the traditional sense, obviously, as its massive nose protrudes over its much smaller lower jaw. But even in the whale sense of mom shooting milk into a baby's mouth, it's been unclear how it works for sperm whales due to their oddly shaped heads. Photos and observations have led researchers to believe that the mother whale expresses milk into the water for the baby to ingests outside of her body, but the real mechanics haven't been clearly understood.

With the proliferation of underwater photography and filmography, it may seem strange that we don't have more nursing whale evidence to examine, but because baby whales can't breathe and nurse at the same time, nursing events are usually quite short. Even being in the right place at the right time to observe a whale nursing is rare, much less capturing it on film.

A four-part documentary series from National Geographic has provided, for the first time, film footage of a sperm whale baby nursing. It shows how the baby actually inserting its lower jaw into the mother's mammary slit, and the milk—which contains ten times more fat than human milk and is the consistency of yogurt—shooting directly into the baby whale's mouth.

Sperm Whale Suckles | National Geographicwww.youtube.com

The documentary series containing this footage, "Secrets of the Whales," was conceived of by National Geographic Explorer and photographer Brian Skerry and follows the stories of five different whale species—narwhals, humpbacks, belugas, sperm whales, and orcas. It was filmed in 24 locations around the world and took three years to make. Produced by award-winning filmmaker and conservationist James Cameron (of "Titanic" and "Avatar" fame) and narrated by award-winning actress and conservationist Sigourney Weaver, the series is sure to please whale lovers and nature lovers alike.

In addition to sperm whale babies breastfeeding, the docuseries shows how beluga whales name themselves so groups can keep track of each other, how baby belugas share their moms' call signs, how 30,000 humpbacks travel together from Australia to Antarctica and use breeches to talk to each other, and how a beluga pod adopted a narwhal into their bod—apparently the first ever cross-species adoption ever recorded.

Executive Producer James Cameron called the series a "challenging, daunting project" in a SXSW Conference panel last month."It's also so important for people to understand and for this film to illuminate how these creatures think, how they feel, what their emotion is like, what their society is like," he said, "because we won't protect what we don't love."

The series premiers on streaming service Disney+ on Earth Day, April 22.

Secrets of the Whales | Official Trailer | Disney+www.youtube.com

The filmmakers hope that by sharing with people the unique identities of the whales they followed, they can inspire people to think about how these magnificent mammals can be better protected.

"It's inescapable that they're being poisoned by us, that they're being deafened by us, or their behaviors, all of their feeding strategies and mating strategies and reproductive strategies are being dismantled by all of this noise from shipping channels and military sonars and all that," Cameron said. "They're going to continue to decline. The right whales are down to about 300…We barely understand these animals, so I think we have to, as a society, we have to think about doing it better."

Indeed we do.


This article originally appeared four years ago.

From Your Site Articles
animals
Science

Scientists have finally figured out how whales are able to 'sing' underwater

The physical mechanism they use has been a mystery until now.

Photo by Oliver Tsappis on Unsplash

Baleen whales include blue, humpback, gray, fin, sei, minke whales and more.

We've long known that baleen whales sing underwater and that males sing in tropical waters to attract females for mating. What we haven't known is how they're able to do it.

When humans make sound underwater, we expel air over through our vocal chords and the air we release rises to the surface as bubbles. But baleen whales don't have vocal chords, and they don't create bubbles when they vocalize. Toothed whales, such as sperm whales, beaked whales, dolphins and porpoises, have an organ in their nasal passages that allows them to vocalize, but baleen whales such as humpback, gray and blue whales don't.

Whales are notoriously difficult to study because of their size and the environment they require, which is why the mechanism behind whale song has remained a mystery for so long. It's not like scientists can just pluck a whale out of the ocean and stick it in an x-ray machine while it's singing to see what's happening inside its body to create the sound. Scientists had theories, but no one really knew how baleen whales sing.

Now, thanks to researchers at the University of Denmark, that mystery has been solved.

To figure it out, a research team blew air through larynxes that had been removed from three juvenile whales that had died after being stranded—one humpback, one minke and one sei whale. They discovered that the design of these "voice boxes" and the mechanism they use to create sound is unique among mammals.

The study, published in the journal Nature, describes a u-shaped structure with a cushion of fat and muscle that allows air to be recycled and prevents water from being inhaled. When air is pushed through it, part of the fatty cushion vibrates and creates the low frequency sound we call whale song.

"We've never seen this in any other animal," lead author Coen Elemans told AFP. "This is a completely novel adaptation, and we think this allowed these large whales to make sound in the water while basically holding their breath."

The low frequency of their singing also sheds light on how human shipping activity can impact these whales' ability to communicate. Whale singing tops out at a frequency of 300 hertz, and whales have to be near the ocean's surface to sing. Since boat sounds range from 30 to 300 hertz and are at the surface of the water, our activity can interfere with whales' communication and reproductive behaviors in ways whales aren't able to adapt to.

"They cannot simply choose to, for example, sing higher to avoid the noise we make in the ocean," Elemans explained to BBC News, adding additional context for why it matters. "[These are some] of the most enigmatic animals that ever lived on the planet. They are amongst the biggest animals, they're smart and they're highly social."

Whale populations have seen a positive turnaround since most countries put an end to commercial whaling, but now the threat is less direct. Since whales live in a mostly acoustic world under the waves, the noise created by boats and shipping vessels can affect their behavior. Since whales can't "outsing" our boat noises, we need to alter our own behavior prevent negatively impacting theirs.

In February 2024, the U.S. Coast Guard launched a "cetacean desk" that alerts regional ferries and commercial vessels in Washington State's Salish Sea to whale sightings in an attempt to prevent collisions and reduce noise when whales are known to be present. The alert system utilizes apps where mariners and civilians can report whale sightings, which are then passed on to captains.

Whale vocalizations are incredibly diverse and wide-ranging, and there's a lot we still don't know about how they communicate. We know that they vocalize to find one another in the murky depths and that males sing to attract females, but more research is needed to learn about the intricacies of their vocal repertoire.

But at least now scientists have a better picture of the "how," which is one step closer to better understanding these massive, magnificent creatures.

From Your Site Articles
whales
Science

Intense video shows a humpback whale breaching on top of a fishing boat

"It was insane!"

via Wikimedia Commons

Humpback whales can weigh as much as 80,000 pounds.

It’s fairly common for people to share videos of a large whale swimming by a boat or coming close to a kayak, but it’s extremely rare for a whale to make direct contact with the vessel.

A new video that is both terrifying and exhilarating shows a humpback whale breaching atop a 19-foot fishing boat. The good news, according to NBC10 Boston, is that no one was hurt and the boat wasn’t seriously damaged. A full-grown humpback whale can grow up to 52 feet long and weigh up to 80,000 pounds so it could do some serious damage.

The incident happened on Sunday, July 24, off the coast of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

“The boat was in the right place at the wrong time. This could have been much worse for all involved," Plymouth Harbormaster Chad Hunter told NBC10 Boston. "Children like to lean over the side of the boat to watch the fish so it is very lucky that nobody got hurt here. An incident like this is pretty rare but very dangerous to boaters.”

The whale and the boat were in the same place at the same time, most likely for identical reasons. The harbormaster said there were a lot of boats in the area over the weekend because there was an abundance of bait fish in the water. The fish probably attracted the whale as well.

Whales are relatively common in the waters off Massachusetts in the months of April through October and then they migrate to warmer waters as winter approaches.

From Your Site Articles
whales
Planet

'Whale nerd' zoologist says 'mind completely blown' filming 1,000 fin whales in one spot

Conor Ryan/Twitter

Zoologist and photographer Conor Ryan spotted 1,000 fin whales in one spot.

Conor Ryan has seen his fair share of whales, and his Twitter handle—@whale_nerd—isn't just a cutesy nickname. Ryan was just 14 years old when he published his first peer-reviewed scientific paper on killer whales with his best friend, Peter Wilson, in 2001. As a wildlife photographer, a zoologist specializing in marine biology and an expert in baleen whales and small cetaceans, he knows when he's looking at something special in the sea.

In other words, when Conor Ryan says his mind is "completely blown" by a whale sighting, you know it's a big deal. Seeing 1,000 fin whales at once? That's a very big deal.

Fin whales are the second-largest animal in the world, second only to the blue whale. In the 20th century, fin whales were hunted to near extinction before commercial whaling was outlawed. Nearly 725,000 were killed in the Southern Hemisphere alone in the mid- 1900s, and though whaling is no longer a threat, fin whales are still on the endangered species list.

Fin whales get their name from an easy-to-spot fin on their backs. Imagine seeing 1,000 of any endangered species in one location, much less 1,000 of these 85-foot, 80-ton whales all feeding in a single location.

Ryan captured the scene on film and shared it on Twitter, writing, "We found about 1000 fin whales over a 5x5 mile area off South Orkney. Blue and humpback also mixed in. Mind completely blown." The video shows a cluster of whales spouting as far as the eye can see.

According to The Guardian, Ryan spotted the whales from the National Geographic Endurance polar cruiser, in an area between the South Orkney Islands and the Antarctic peninsula. Their ship was in an area with four large krill fishing vessels, which explains the feeding frenzy.

Ryan said it might be "one of the largest aggregations of fin whales ever documented” and that his estimate of 1,000 whales was a conservative one.

“Words fail me,” Ryan told The Guardian. “I have seen maybe 100 fins here before in previous years. Thousands of chinstrap penguins, petrels, and albatrosses, too … It was unusually calm weather and unusually good visibility.”

Though commercial whaling laws have greatly reduced the decimation of whale populations we saw in the 1900s, whales still face threats from human activity. According to NOAA, the main threat to fin whales today is vessel strikes. Cargo and cruise boat ships have increased in number in the past few decades, which increases the risk of running into whales, but they aren't the only ships that pose a threat. Last year, two dead fin whales had to be dislodged from the hull of an Australian Navy ship after it pulled into the naval pier in San Diego. The fact that they are still considered endangered means we have to stay vigilant about their protection.

But as author Philip Hoare wrote in The Guardian, "In a world constrained by woe and threats to democracy…1,000 fin whales can’t help but lift our hearts." Such a number is decidedly good news, which is always worth celebrating and which provides a beacon of hope that we can make impactful changes that help our planet when we choose to.

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Trending Stories