Whales dont spray water from their blowholes and other myths, debunked
Table Of Content
Whales rely heavily on sound for communication, but in this new noisy reality they struggle to have their voices heard. Beluga whales were observed vacating a feeding area and swimming 50 miles (80 km) away for several days to avoid an approaching ice-breaker ship. Beaked whales and blue whales are particularly sensitive to sonar, and several mass strandings have been tied to related military exercises. Right whales live and migrate along coastal shores and so they frequently pass and congregate near bustling ports. They are also slow swimmers, a trait that has proven deadly in the 21st century.
Dolphins Can Sense Electric Fields, Which Isn’t That Shocking - The New York Times
Dolphins Can Sense Electric Fields, Which Isn’t That Shocking.
Posted: Thu, 30 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Do whales and dolphins have hair?
Recent studies recording bowhead whales singing all winter long under the Arctic ice have revealed that they are creative singers. Bowhead whales sing most frequently from October through April during the near full darkness of the polar winter. Unlike other whales, bowheads produce lots of different songs each year and their songs are rich with variation.
Highly Pathogenic Bird Flu Detected For The First Time In Common Bottlenose Dolphin
Right whales include North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis), their near relatives North Pacific right whales (Eubalaena japonica) and Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis). Other baleen whales include the enigmatic pygmy right whales (Caperea marginata) that live today only in the Southern Ocean and gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus). Pygmy right whales reach only about 20 feet in length, making them the smallest of the baleen whales. Both baleen and toothed whales breathe through blowholes (the whale’s version of nostrils). Because cetaceans only eat through their mouths, which is not connected to their lungs, they are able to reduce the possibility of drowning from water moving into their lungs while eating a meal.
Which whale live the longest?
Of these species, the hair follicles are probably most visible in the humpback whale, which has golf ball-sized bumps on its head, called tubercles, which house the hairs. Modeling techniques had advanced considerably in the decades since 1903, and lightweight plastics and fiberglass allowed for a more dynamic posture. Most whales could only be studied after they had washed up on a beach or at whaling stations after they had been killed and hauled to shore.
Humpback Whales
Hundreds of these plates are lined up in a row and attached to the whale’s upper jaw. The baleen is made of keratin, which is also what makes up human nails and hair. The keratin frays at the edges producing comb-like strands that help to filter out small animals. These large baleen whales (including the largest vertebrate on Earth—blue whales) eat some of the smallest creatures found in the ocean. Their baleen filters out water and captures krill (small planktonic crustaceans), other plankton and small fish. The whales tend to seek out high-density patches of prey to increase feeding efficiency.
Vaquita (Phocoena sinus), Hector’s (Cephalorhynchus hectori) and Maui’s (Cephalorhynchus hectori maui) dolphins are among the smallest toothed whale species, each reaching less than 5 feet long. Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are known for their long unicorn-like tusk, which is a modified canine tooth. They are most closely related to the iconic white beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), which are in the same family. Toothed whales receive high-frequency sounds through specialized “acoustic fats” that sit along their lower jawbone and lead to their internal ears. They use echolocation, or biological sonar, to navigate and “see” objects. Toothed whales can expand their sound repertoire into the high frequencies through the use of nasal air sacs and a fatty melon that sits within their forehead.
History & Culture
We know that cetaceans are intelligent, but there is still so much to learn about how they think and communicate. Their long migration routes and deep dives mean that they are not easy to track. Despite the popularity of whale watches and long-term interest in protecting whales, even knowing something as basic as the number of whales over time is a challenging question to answer.
Scientists now believe bowheads can live longer than humans and are among the longest-lived of all mammals. Their songs can last for up to 30 minutes and feature various themes sung in a sequence that is common to all males in the same breeding area that year. During the winter mating season, they repeat their songs over and over for hours at a time and gradually change them as the breeding season progresses. The large jumps that bring almost the entire body out of the water are called breaching.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Whales may jump once or do a series of jumps, but the more that occur the more energy is used. However, porpoising—leaping out of the water over and over—is an efficient means of travel that dolphins and porpoises use to reduce the amount of energy used swimming over long distances. Dolphins will also ride the waves near the bow of a ship, a behavior that many think is just for fun. With the large size of baleen whales, one would think tracking their movements might be an easy endeavor, but this is harder than you might imagine. Although the migration patterns of some species are well known, others still prove elusive. For example, Southern right whales breed and nurse newborn calves in warm tropical waters off of South Africa, Australia, and South America, but scientists aren’t positive of their winter feeding ground locations.
This theory suggests that the hair on whales has no function in its current form and is simply a byproduct of their evolutionary history. One possible explanation for the presence of hair on whales is that it is a remnant of their evolutionary past. Whales are believed to have descended from land-based mammals, and the hair may have served a purpose in their terrestrial environment. Whales’ breathing is “very efficient,” adds Pippa Garrard, the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust’s education manager, and they have “conscious control” over their breathing and heart rate.
Over millions of years, whales have evolved floating middle and inner ear bones that are separate from the skull as a way to hear more clearly. The ear bones that house the middle ear are actually separate from the skull, housed in a suspended chamber of the skull surrounding the ear bones. Hearing is important for both baleen and toothed whales, but the mechanisms they use to take in and interpret sound may be different. Some species, such as the humpback whale, use their hair to create unique sounds used in various communication forms, such as courtship, territorial disputes, and warning signals.
Throughout the 1870s several aquariums in the United States and in Europe began to showcase particular whale species, such as beluga whales and oceanic dolphins, though few were able to keep them alive for very long. In 1938, Florida’s Marine Studios, initially built as a film location for underwater productions, was quickly reinvented into a tourist attraction once the owners discovered the dolphins’ theatrical talents. It wasn’t until the 1950s and 60s that people realized dolphins could be trained to perform elaborate tricks and routines. The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal program began in 1960 and studied the animals as well as trained them to help with military procedures.
Generally, baleen whales are also found throughout the world’s oceans, and they are named for the plates of baleen in their mouth that filter out food from large gulps of ocean water (see Feeding section). Female baleen whales tend to be larger than males of the same species, another example of sexual dimorphism. Hearing involves the perception of vibrations and underwater sound vibrations cause the entire skull to vibrate, not just the membranes in the ears.
Scientists have identified 184 distinct melodies recorded in one area over a three year period. Singing fin whales produce repetitive, powerful low frequency pulses and so their songs feature a simple, long down sweep in frequency and often a simultaneous high frequency part, both are repeated over and over. Each hair follicle is surrounded by nerves, which likely perform a sensory function. Perhaps they are used to sense prey in the water or assess prey densities to tell the whale when there is enough fish in a school that it’s worth feeding. They may also be used in social situations (such as if a calf needs to tell its mom that it needs to nurse), or maybe they are used to detect changes in water currents. A study in 2015 found that bowhead whales are typically hairless, apart from patches of more than 300 hairs on the tops of their heads and their chins.
Comments
Post a Comment