Latest news with #Balaenoptera
Muscat Daily
22-04-2025
- Science
- Muscat Daily
Bryde's whale sighted in Musandam for first time
Musandam – A Bryde's whale has been recorded for the first time in Musandam in what Environment Authority (EA) has described as a significant step in Oman's marine conservation efforts. The sighting was made during fieldwork by specialists from the Marine Mammal Species Survey Project, which has been underway in phases since 2023. The whale was spotted with a calf in the waters of Khawr Najd. A video released by EA showed the animal surfacing, offering a rare glimpse of the elusive species in the region. The observation took place during the project's fifth phase currently being conducted in Khasab from April 13 to 24. Bryde's whales (Balaenoptera edeni) have previously been sighted, including with calves, in the Gulf of Masirah and Muscat, but never before in Musandam. The new sighting contributes to efforts aimed at mapping marine life in Musandam National Nature Reserve, a key part of Oman's long-term biodiversity strategy. Aida bint Khalaf al Jabriya, who heads the project, said the discovery enhances understanding of lesser-known marine species in the sultanate. 'This survey represents a pioneering effort that integrates fieldwork with scientific research,' she said. 'It contributes to the creation of a national database that enhances Oman's commitment to protecting marine life and ensuring sustainability for future generations.' Distinguished by three ridges on the top of the head, Bryde's whales are typically found in warmer waters. These feed mainly on small fish and plankton, using a 'surge and swallow' technique, and are usually seen alone or in small groups. These characteristics make confirmed sightings particularly valuable for researchers. Aida informed that her team uses a combination of visual monitoring and digital tools to record sightings. 'Our team conducts visual monitoring using binoculars and the naked eye, searching for signs such as surface disturbances or bird behaviour indicating fish presence.' Observations are recorded using a custom-built application called Spinner, supported by high-resolution cameras, drones and GoPros. 'Each sighting is documented with species data, group size, behaviour, time and precise location,' Aida added. 'We also gather environmental data including water depth, wind speed, and marine mammal vocalisations to enrich our understanding and support scientific research.' Since the start of the survey, 38 marine mammal sightings have been logged in Musandam, including Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, spinner dolphins, long-beaked common dolphins and pantropical spotted dolphins. Humpback dolphins were mostly recorded in the western parts of the reserve, while larger groups of other species were seen in areas like Ras Shas, Khasab and Khawr Najd. The findings underline the ecological importance of Musandam's coastal waters and reinforce calls for continued monitoring and conservation to protect Oman's marine biodiversity.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
What ‘the world's loneliest whale' may be telling us about climate change
Almost 40 years ago, deep in the Pacific, a single voice called out a song unlike any other. The sound reverberated through the depths at 52 Hertz, puzzling those listening to this solo ringing out from the ocean's symphony. The frequency was much higher than a blue whale or its cousin, the fin, leaving scientists to ponder the mystery of Whale 52. The leviathan has been heard many times since, but never seen. Some suspect it might have some deformation that alters its voice. Others think it might simply exhibit a highly unusual vocalization — a tenor among baritones. But Marine biologist John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research Collective suggests another possibility: 'The loneliest whale,' so named because there may be no one to respond to its unique call, may not be an anomaly, but a clue. Calambokidis, who has spent more than 50 years studying cetaceans, suspects Whale 52 may be a hybrid: Part blue whale, part fin whale. Such a creature, often called a flue whale, is growing more common as warming seas push blues into new breeding grounds, where they are increasingly likely to mate with their fin relatives. A survey of north Atlantic blues published last year found that fin whale DNA comprised as much as 3.5 percent of their genome, a striking figure given the two species diverged 8.35 million years ago. If Whale 52 is indeed a hybrid, its presence suggests genetic intermingling among Balaenoptera musculus, as blues are known among scientists, and Balaenoptera physalus has been occurring for decades, if not longer. The North Atlantic findings suggest it is accelerating. Cetacean interbreeding has been documented before, notably among narwhals and belugas and between two species of pilot whales, combinations attributed largely to warming seas pushing these animals into new territory and closer proximity. But hybridization has been more closely studied among terrestrial creatures like the pizzly bears born of grizzlies and polar bears. It is scarcely understood in marine mammals, and little is known about what intermingling will mean for the genetics, behavior, and survival of the largest animal to have ever lived. 'Blue whales are still struggling to recover from centuries of whaling, with some populations remaining at less than 5 percent of their historical numbers,' Calambokidis said. While the number of confirmed hybrids remains low, continued habitat disruption could make them more common, eroding their genetic diversity and reducing the resilience of struggling populations. Before the arrival of genomics 30 years ago, marine biologists identified hybrids primarily through morphology, or the study of physical traits. If an animal displayed the features of two species — the dappled skin of a narwhal and stout body of a beluga, for example — it might be labeled a hybrid based on external characteristics or skeletal measurements. Anecdotal evidence might also play a role: Historical whaling logs suggest blues and fins occasionally interbred, though such pairings went largely unconfirmed. But morphology can, at best, only reveal the first-generation offspring of two distinct species. By analyzing DNA, marine biologists like Aimee Lang can now identify intermingling that occurred generations ago, uncovering a far more complex history than was previously understood. This new level of detail complicates the picture: Are flues becoming more common, or are researchers simply better equipped to find them? As scientists probe the genetic signatures of whales worldwide, they hope to distinguish whether hybridization is an emerging trend driven by climate change, or a long-standing, overlooked facet of cetacean evolution. In any case, some marine biologists find the phenomenon worrisome because flues are largely incapable of reproducing. Although some females are fertile, males tend to be sterile. These hybrids represent a small fraction of the world's blue whales — of which no more than 25,000 remain — but the lopsided population of the two species suggests they will increase. There are four times as many fins as blues worldwide, and an estimate of the waters around Iceland found 37,000 fins to 3,000 blues. 'Three thousand is not a very high density of animals,' said Lang, who studies marine mammal genetics at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 'So you can imagine if a female blue is looking for a mate and she can't find a blue whale but there's fin whales all over the place, she'll choose one of them.' This has profound implications for conservation. If hybrids are not easily identifiable, it could lead to inaccurate estimates of the blue whale population and difficulty assessing the efficacy of conservation programs. More troubling, sterile animals cannot contribute to the survival of their species. Simply put, hybridization presents a threat to their long-term viability. Read Next Biden administration gives up on lower ocean speed limits to protect right whales Emily Jones 'If it becomes frequent enough, hybrid genomes could eventually swamp out the true blue whale genomes,' Lang said. 'It could be that hybrids are not as well adapted to the environment as a purebred blue or fin, meaning that whatever offspring are produced are evolutionary dead ends.'This could have consequences for entire ecosystems. Each whale species plays a specific role in ensuring marine ecosystem health by, say, managing krill populations or providing essential nutrients like iron. Hybrids that don't play the role evolution has assigned to them undermine this symbiotic relationship with the sea. 'Those individuals and their offspring aren't fully filling the ecological niche of either parent species,' Calambokidis said. All of this adds to the uncertainty wrought by the upheavals already underway. Many marine ecosystems are experiencing regime shifts — abrupt and often irreversible changes in structure and function — driven by warming waters, acidification, and shifting prey distributions. These alterations are pushing some cetacean species into smaller, more isolated breeding pools. There is reason for concern beyond blue whales. Rampant interbreeding among the 76 orcas of the genetically distinct and critically endangered Southern Resident killer whale population of the Pacific Northwest is cutting their lifespans nearly in half, by placing them at greater risk of harmful genetic traits, weakened immune systems, reduced fertility, and higher calf mortality. Tahlequah, the southern resident orca who became known around the world in 2018 for carrying her dead calf for 17 days, lost another one in January. The 370 or so North Atlantic right whales that still remain may face similar challenges. Some level of cetacean interbreeding and hybridization may be inevitable as species adapt to climate change. Some of it may prove beneficial. The real concern is whether these changes will outpace whales' ability to survive. Flue whales may be an anomaly, but their existence is a symptom of broader, anthropogenic disruptions. 'There are examples of populations that are doing well, even though they have low genetic diversity, and there are examples where they aren't doing well,' said Vania Rivera Leon, who researches population genetics at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts. 'They might be all right under current conditions, but if and when the conditions shift more, that could flip.' 'The effect could be what we call a bottleneck,' she added. 'A complete loss of genetic diversity.' These changes often unfold too gradually for humans to perceive quickly. Unlike fish, which have rapid life cycles and clear population booms or crashes, whales live for decades, with overlapping generations that obscure immediate trends. There have only been about 30 whale generations since whaling largely ceased. To truly grasp how these pressures are shaping whale populations, researchers may need twice that long to uncover what is happening beneath the waves and what, if anything, Whale 52 might be saying about it. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What 'the world's loneliest whale' may be telling us about climate change on Apr 2, 2025.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Whale Song Reveals Eerie Similarities to Human Speech, Scientists Find
Two new studies have found eerily human-like sophistication in whale songs, challenging notions about our exceptionality and potentially shedding light on the evolution of language. Some whales can match or even surpass the efficiency of our speech, one of the studies found, with humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) providing the closest competition. In the second study, researchers report that humpback songs adhere to a statistical structure considered a hallmark of human language. "These findings challenge long-held assumptions about the uniqueness of human language, uncovering deep commonalities between evolutionarily distant species," says Simon Kirby, professor of language evolution at the University of Edinburgh. Aside from impressing and humbling us, the whales' abilities could help us better understand the language of other animals and our own. A growing body of research suggests lots of species have intricate communication systems, and many exhibit qualities once deemed uniquely human. In the efficiency paper, ethologist and computational scientist Mason Youngblood from Stony Brook University used a pair of linguistic laws to examine the efficiency of 51 human languages and 65,511 whale-song sequences. Natural selection favors efficient communication, Youngblood notes, which helps individuals share vital information quickly and simply. Complex signals can convey more, he acknowledges, and redundancy helps ensure accurate transmission, but those benefits aren't free. Prattling takes valuable time and energy, and could attract predators. To quantify the efficiency of human and whale communication, Youngblood used two linguistic principles: Menzerath's law and Zipf's law of abbreviation. According to Menzerath's law, efficiency increases when longer sequences like words, sentences, or songs consist of shorter elements, like words, phonemes, or notes, Youngblood explains. Per Zipf's law of abbreviation, a communication system is more efficient if frequently used elements – like words, phonemes, and notes – are shorter. Youngblood applied both laws to vocalization sequences from 16 cetacean species, including baleen whales as well as dolphins and other toothed whales. For comparison, he also assessed 51 human languages. Calls from 11 of 16 species exhibited Menzerath's law as much or more than human speech. The exceptions were orcas (Orcinus orca), Hector's dolphins (Cephalorhynchus hectori), Commerson's dolphins (Cephalorhynchus commersonii), Heaviside's dolphins (Cephalorhynchus heavisidii), and North Pacific right whales (Eubalaena japonica). Most species didn't display Zipf's law of abbreviation, Youngblood reports. It appeared just in humpback and blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), with only humpbacks rivaling humanity's embrace of the law. For the second study, researchers focused on humpback whale songs, applying quantitative methods traditionally used to evaluate speech in human babies. Previous research has identified a specific attribute of human language that seems to aid learning and promote language preservation. Structurally coherent units of a language display a frequency distribution governed by a power law called a Zipfian distribution. This seems to help babies learn a language more easily, the researchers on the new study note, and "likely enhances the accurate preservation of language across generations." Humpback songs are similarly complex, often arising from nested hierarchical components. For example the whales create phrases using individual sound elements, then repeat phrases to form themes, and put themes together to build songs. Humpbacks also pass on songs culturally, as we do with language. If the statistical properties of human languages evolved for smoother cultural transmission, the authors say, then similar signs should appear in whale songs. To test that idea, they analyzed eight years of humpback recordings with speech-segmentation techniques designed for use with human infants. This revealed hidden structure in the songs, including statistically coherent subsequences whose frequency followed a Zipfian distribution – traits found in all human languages. The subsequence lengths also adhere to Zipf's law of brevity, the researchers add, which states more frequently used linguistic units tend to be shorter. "Using insights and methods from how babies learn language allowed us to discover previously undetected structure in whale song," says first author Inbal Arnon, a developmental psycholinguist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Finding this hidden, "language-like" structure was a surprise, adds behavioral ecologist Ellen Garland from the University of St. Andrews. Whale songs lack the semantic meaning of language, she explains, and may be more comparable to human music. Nonetheless, Garland says this discovery "strongly suggests this cultural behavior holds crucial insight into the evolution of complex communication across the animal kingdom." The studies were published in Science Advances and Science. Mysterious Radioactive Anomaly Discovered Deep Under The Pacific Ocean Sea Turtles Dance to Orientate With Earth's Magnetic Field, Study Reveals Yellowstone's Super-Hot Water May Hold The Secrets of Earth's First Breath
