World's First: Researchers Discover Northern Pacific Gray Whale In Southern Hemisphere
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Scientists from the Namibian Dolphin Project working off the coast of Namibia in southwest Africa have spotted a North Pacific gray whale there, marking the first time the giant mammal...
Latest Cetaceans Stories
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Humpback whales are known for their songs that can be heard from miles away and new research from a team of American biologists has detailed the whales singing habits as they roam the feeding grounds of the northwest Atlantic. The study’s findings, which were published in the open access journal PLOS ONE, emphasize the usefulness of passive acoustics listening techniques in monitoring animal activity. “We have monitored and...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online New research, led by the University of St. Andrews, has found humpback whales are able to pass on hunting techniques to each other, just as humans do. A new feeding technique has spread to 40 percent of a humpback whale population, the team discovered. Their findings have been published in a recent issue of Science. After herring stocks – their preferred food – crashed in the 1980s, a community of humpback whales off the cost...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Blasting sound waves through the ocean to the seafloor in search of fossil fuels may do more harm than good, according to environmentalists. But the US Department of Interior has been considering giving large oil and gas companies permission to do just that. According to estimates, scores of marine mammals would be injured and possibly killed along the east coast if these companies follow through with their dangerous sonar...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Researchers are reporting some rare good news in the world of animal conservation. Scientists from Cambridge University, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Chilean National Forestry Commission (CONAF) say the endangered Huemul deer, native to Patagonia, is bouncing back from the brink of extinction. The Huemul is only found in the Latin American region, and the new report says the deer is experiencing a resurgence thanks to a...
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study by researchers from researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) and Aarhus University in Denmark is focusing on one of the most endangered animal species currently known: the river dolphin. The Ganges river dolphin, after having diverged from other toothed whale species some 30 million years ago, is thought to be one of the oldest species of aquatic animals to employ the technique of echolocation, or...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online According to new research published in the journal Naturwissenschaften, the dwarf baleen whale lived well into the Ice Age. Researchers from New Zealand's University of Otago found that the fossil of a dwarf baleen whale from Northern California, or Herpetocetus, is thought to be the last survivor of the primitive baleen whale family, dating just 700,000 years old. Otago Department of Geology PhD student Robert Boessenecker said the...
Southwest Fisheries Science Center: NOAA Researchers have identified areas off southern California with high numbers of whales and assessed their risk from potentially deadly collisions with commercial ship traffic in a study released today in the scientific journal Conservation Biology. Scientists from NOAA Fisheries, the Marine Mammal Commission and Cascadia Research Collective analyzed data collected over seven years by NOAA on marine mammal and ecosystem research surveys in the...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A beach in southern Chile is being overwhelmed by millions of stranded prawns that have taken up two miles worth of the coastline. According to a report by AFP, millions of the small prawns are covering a beach 300 miles south of Santiago, creating giant "red spots" on the sand. Fisherman said at first the red spots appeared just off the shore, but by Tuesday of this week the prawns had moved to land, and "millions" were stranded...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Marine biologists reported in the journal Deep-Sea Research II: Topical Studies in Oceanography they have discovered a whale skeleton sitting on the ocean floor near Antarctica for the first time. Researchers said they made the discovery nearly a mile below the surface of the ocean in an undersea crater, offering some new insights into life in the sea depths. Until now, whale carcasses have never been studied in the Antarctic region....
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Since the time of Aristotle, biologists have struggled to understand the reasons for mass strandings of whales and dolphins on beaches. Contrary to previous assumptions that whales follow each other onto the beach – and almost certain death – on account of familial ties, a new study from Oregon State University and the University of Auckland reveals that many unrelated individuals are present at each event. The findings of this...
Latest Cetaceans Reference Libraries
Image Caption: Fossil of Feresa Attenuata, Shimonoseki Marine Science Museum KAIKYOUKAN, Japan. Credit: OpenCage/Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 2.5) The pygmy killer whale is widely distributed in tropical and sub-tropical waters worldwide. Regular sightings of this species occur off the coast of Hawaii and Japan, and also in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka and Lesser Antilles. In the Atlantic the pygmy killer whale has been seen off the coast of South Carolina and Senegal. This species swims in...
The crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophagus) is a true seal that can be found around the whole of Antarctica. Its range also includes small areas in South America, New Zealand, Africa, and Australia. It resides on the pack ice zone for the entire year, even as it shifts seasonally, and prefers to stay in the continental shelf area in water with a depth of less than 1,968 feet. Because the populations are so wide spread and are sufficiently mixed, there have been no subspecies found. Because...
The Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus) is the largest of all toothed whales and is believed to be the largest toothed animal to ever inhabit Earth, measuring up to 60 ft (18 m) long. (The baleen blue whale is larger, and invertebrates such as the Lion's Mane Jellyfish or the Portuguese Man of War may be longer.) The whale was named after the milky-white substance spermaceti found in its head and originally mistaken for sperm. The Sperm Whale's enormous head and distinctive shape, as well as...
The False Killer Whale (Pseudorca crassidens) is a cetacean and one of the larger members of the oceanic dolphin family (Delphinidae). It lives in temperate and tropical waters throughout the world. As its name implies the False Killer Whale shares characteristics with the more widely known orca ("killer whale"). The two species look somewhat similar and, like the orca, the False Killer Whale attacks and kills other cetaceans. Scientists have not extensively studied the False Killer Whale...
The Melon-headed Whale (Peponocephala electra; other names are many-toothed blackfish and electra dolphin) is a cetacean of the oceanic dolphin family (Delphinidae). It is closely related to the Pygmy Killer Whale and the Pilot Whales, and collectively these dolphin species are known by the common name blackfish. The Melon-headed Whale is widespread throughout the world's tropical waters, although not often seen by humans on account of its preference for deep water. Taxonomy On account...
