High-Pitched Echolocation Helps Harbor Porpoises Avoid Killer Whales
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) have determined why harbour porpoises are doing so well in coastal and busy waters. The team wrote in the journal Frontiers in...
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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...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Fossil discoveries are nothing new. And finding new species is just as common. But when you find a fossil of an animal new to science, things start to get more interesting—especially when that discovery includes not one, but four new species from the same genus. This is exactly what occurred in the Laguna Canyon outcrop, a fossil bed unearthed during a highway construction project in California in 2000. The site, which was...
Smithsonian scientists have recently described a new species of toothed whale that once lived in warm climates during the Pliocene era 3-4 million years ago. These whales may have possibly been a close relative to the modern day Beluga and Narwhal. Those happy looking whales, the Beluga and Narwhal, live exclusively in colder climates like the Arctic and sub-arctic. The challenge now for the scientists is to uncover the mystery of why the whales moved farther north when once they were...
False killer whales focus echolocation clicks Hunting in the ocean's murky depths, vision is of little use, so toothed whales and dolphins (odontocetes) rely on echolocation to locate tasty morsels with incredible precision. Laura Kloepper from the University of Hawaii, USA, explains that odontocetes produce their distinctive echolocation clicks in nasal structures in the forehead and broadcast them through a fat-filled acoustic lens, called the melon. 'Studies by other people showed...
Scientists affiliated with the University of Michigan found that skewed skulls may have helped early whales find the direction of sounds in water. Asymmetric skulls are a well-known characteristic of the modern whale group known as "odontocetes" or toothed whales. These whales have modified nasal structures that help produce high-frequency sounds for echolocation. The other modern whale group known as "masticates," or baleen whales, has symmetrical skulls and does not...
Genomic record matches fossil record in the whales' common ancestor, say UC Riverside biologistsIn contrast to a toothed whale, which retains teeth that aid in capturing prey, a living baleen whale (e.g., blue whale, fin whale, humpback, bowhead) has lost its teeth and must sift zooplankton and small fish from ocean waters with baleen or whalebone, a sieve-like structure in the upper jaw that filters food from large mouthfuls of seawater.Based on previous anatomical and fossil data studies,...
Finless porpoises may be more endangered than previously thought. A new study of finless porpoises, a rare type of toothed whale, found that there are two species, not one, and they rarely intermingle. Scientists say that finless porpoises living in the fresh waters of China's Yangtze river are genetically unique, numbering fewer than 1000. They warn that greater efforts must be made to prevent these animals. The whales inhabit a wide range of tropical and temperate waters around the...
A new finding raises the possibility that commercial whaling may have taken a role breaking apart social groups of whales. Dr. Christian Ramp and colleagues of the Mingan Island Cetacean Study group based in St. Lambert, Canada have been studying whales since 1997 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The scientists are recording the movements of baleen whales including blue, fin, minke and humpback whales, adding to a set of data that stretch back 30 years. The team found that individual female...
Only some bats and toothed whales rely on sophisticated echolocation, in which they emit sonar pulses and process returning echoes, to detect and track down small prey. Now, two new studies in the January 26th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that bats' and whales' remarkable ability and the high-frequency hearing it depends on are shared at a much deeper level than anyone would have anticipated"”all the way down to the molecular level.The discovery represents an...
A new report warns that levels of noise in the world's oceans are causing serious problems for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals.Undersea noise blocks animals' communication and disrupts feeding, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw).Some say naval sonar has been linked to the mass deaths of some cetaceans.The level of ocean noise in some regions is doubling each decade and Ifaw says protective measures are failing."Humanity is literally drowning out...
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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 Beluga Whale or White Whale (Delphinapterus leucas), is an Arctic and sub-arctic species of marine mammal. It is commonly referred to simply as the Beluga. The Beluga occurs in waters from 50° N to 80° N. There is also an isolated population which travels the St. Lawrence River estuary and the Saguenay Fjord. There is an endangered colony of Belugas in the Cook Inlet in Alaska as well. This small whale can grow up to 16 feet long and is larger than most dolphins, but smaller...
The Pygmy Sperm Whale (Kogia breviceps) is one of three species of whale in the sperm whale family. They are not often sighted at sea and most of our understanding of the creatures comes from the study of washed-up specimens Taxonomy There has been debate and differing opinion as to the correct classification of the Pygmy and Dwarf Sperm Whales. The two were widely considered to be the same species, until 1966, when a scientist at the Smithsonian Institute definitively diagnosed them as...
The Rough-toothed Dolphin (Steno bredanensis) is a fairly large dolphin that can be found in deep warm and tropical waters around the world. Naming and discovery Cuvier first described the Dolphin in 1823. The genus name Steno, of which this species is the only member, comes from the Greek for 'narrow', referring to the species nose - which is a diagnostic characteristic of the species. The specific name honors van Breda who studied Cuvier's writings. The common name refers to the thin...
The Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is the most common and well-known dolphin species. It inhabits warm and temperate seas worldwide and may be found in all but the Arctic and the Antarctic Oceans. Physical description Bottlenose Dolphins are grey, varying from dark grey at the top near the dorsal fin to very light grey and almost white at the underside. The salt water makes them hard to see both from above and below when swimming. The elongated upper and lower jaws give the...
