Whales dont spray water from their blowholes and other myths, debunked
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As part of the mammal family, one might expect whales to bear these features, and indeed, the answer sheds light on the astounding complexity and diversity of cetaceans. Looking at a whale’s body and biology, there are plenty of clues that their ancestors lived on land. They breathe air and nurse their young with their own milk, they also have paddle-shaped flippers which encase hand bones with ‘fingers’. The lowest frequency songs are sung by blue whales and scientists have discovered that their voices are getting lower and deeper each year. Blue whales are also loud - their sounds have measured to reach 186 decibels (only the sperm whale is louder).
Do Whales Have Hairs?
Just how many cetaceans currently exist in our ocean, by species or population size, is a challenging but important question for scientists. To measure the current population size in cetaceans, scientists rely on a number of different methods. Estimates can also be made using underwater acoustic recordings, mark and recapture methods, and visually identifying individuals based on their marks and scarring. Species found in the open ocean, rather than coastal ecosystems, are harder to study and therefore less is known about their life histories and population status. We know very little about beaked whales that spend much of their time in cold, deep waters, for example, and have few markings that identify individuals when they are seen.
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But while there have been instances of humans being engulfed in a whale’s mouth—including, most recently, a lobster fisherman in Cape Cod, Massachusetts—most whales are not even capable of swallowing people. For whales body hair can often be seen on baby whales and depending on the species their body hair may fall off and disappear completely over the first several days/weeks of birth. The volume of their super-sized brains is almost 500 cubic inches, which is more than five times the volume of ours - 80 cubic inches. A sperm whale’s brain weighs up to 9kg (almost 20lbs) which is the weight of a small dog and 6 times heavier than a human brain. Dive deeper into the world of whales and dolphins and learn more about their lives. It may come as a surprise that the tale of the unicorn was most likely inspired by a whale.
Sensory Organs
Only the population that breeds in Central America remains on the list, and the California blue whale population is also making a comeback. In 2014, a study determined that this subset of blue whales is at about 97 percent of what it was prior to whaling, offering hope that other whale species and populations, with continued protection, can rebound. These behaviors are seen in all cetaceans but more often in groups of larger baleen whales like the humpback, sperm, and gray whales. For orcas, spyhopping is likely used to better see prey at the surface (PDF) or on floating ice. Gaining information about the age of a whale or dolphin is difficult for scientists. Information can be gathered from dead animals that wash up on shore, or from bones that have been sitting in museum collections since the time of whaling.
This disrupted the hair follicle cycle and eventually led to complete hair loss due to the loss of Hr gene function in cetaceans. While whales are strictly protected by law, endangered whale sharks are not. The country’s existing marine protected areas only cover a small portion of whale sharks’ habitat and conservationists are calling for formal measures to better preserve this endangered species as well as other sharks and rays. This means they are cold-blooded, have gills, and their skeleton is made from cartilage—like our ears and nose—rather than bone. A handy way to tell the difference is that a whale’s tail moves up and down but a shark’s tail moves from side to side. We’re dispelling the most common misconceptions about these marine mammals—which is essential to keeping them safe and healthy.
It was a surreal experience for scientist Roger Payne when he first heard the haunting songs of humpback whales in the 1960s. According to Payne, “That’s what whales do; they give the ocean its voice, and the voice they give it is ethereal and unearthly.” The music industry agreed. Soon musicians began incorporating their haunting melodies into mainstream music, a trend that helped change the perception of whales from expendable commodities to charismatic creatures, worthy of protection. Whale song was even included on the Golden Record aboard the Voyager space probes that were launched in 1977.
On occasion, a tour boat will collide with a whale, injuring or even killing it. According to data collected by the International Whaling Commission, whale-watching vessels collide with whales in the highest numbers compared to all other vessels. However, it is important to note this may be skewed by the likelihood of a vessel type to report a collision. In Laguna San Ignacio on the Baja Peninsula, fishermen began supplementing their income in the 1980s by taking tourists to see the curious and friendly gray whales that come to the protective lagoons to rear their calves. Now, the whale tourism industry there is one of the most important contributors to the local economy.
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Just like us, they breathe air, have hair, are warm-blooded, give birth to live young, and feed their young milk. The Gulf of Panama is a bustling place where tens of thousands of ships cross to pass through the Panama Canal. Tragically, whales often get hit by passing ships and sometimes the collisions are deadly.
They also have fatty tissue that seems important to their hearing, but the specific mechanisms are not well understood. Smithsonian scientists are exploring how these two groups come to have such different ways of hearing. Whales’ hairs provide a layer of protection against external elements, such as parasites, debris, and foreign objects. The hair on the skin helps in reducing the friction between the whale’s skin and the water, making it easier for the whale to move through the water. Additionally, the hair on the flippers and tail fins act as aerodynamic surfaces, assisting the whale in swimming more efficiently. The belief that whales are so large they can swallow humans alive is as old as the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale.
These prehistoric whales were more elongated than modern whales and had small back legs and front flippers. Their nostrils were situated halfway between the tip of the snout and the forehead and they had ear bones just like those of modern whales. Basilosaurus shows the link or intermediate between whales and their terrestrial ungulate ancestors. A blue whale baby is typically weaned at 6-7 months old at which point they have doubled in length.
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Sperm whales also contained a special liquid in their head called spermaceti or “head oil” and a wax-like substance in their intestines called ambergris that was used in medicine and perfume. Baleen whales, including gray, bowhead, humpback, and right, were also targeted despite having inferior quality oil. Their baleen was used in buggy whips, carriage springs, corset stays, fishing poles, umbrellas, and hoop skirts. Life at sea was long and arduous for whalers, and many filled the hours of idleness by taking up carving and engraving.
Between 1900 and 1999 an estimated three million whales were killed by the whaling industry. Barnacles mooch off of whales in a commensal relationship—hitching a ride on their backs. The barnacles don’t harm the whale but take advantage of the moving home that brings meals directly to them.
In 2019, a large sperm whale was found beached with over 200 pounds of trash in its stomach. One of the biggest threats to whale survival is entanglement from fishing gear. Once made with biodegradable wood and ropes, fishing gear is now predominantly made of synthetic materials, like plastic. Today, female right whales are giving birth every 9 years as opposed to every three years as they were in the 1980s, a trend that is likely not only influenced by entanglement but other stressors as well. It wasn’t until recently that humans began to see whales as charismatic and intelligent creatures.
A phrase is composed of individual sounds like rattles, whistles, moans, and grunts. Whales in one area will usually sing the same song, although it often will change gradually over time. But sometimes migrating whales will cross paths, prompting one set of whales to switch to the more popular tune. Scientists are still unsure, however, many hypotheses propose it has some benefit for mating. Instead of teeth, baleen whales have hundreds of overlapping baleen plates grow downwards from the gums of the whale’s upper jaw. The number, size, and color of the baleen plates are unique for each whale species.
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