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Bowhead whale cracks through ice in order to breathe
A marine biologist captured video of the moment a bowhead whale cracked through a layer of ice in West Greenland in order to breathe.
Fredrik Oscar Christiansen of Aarhus University in Denmark posted the footage on his Instagram page, describing it as 'an ice whale breathing through a hole in the ice.'
'This behavior happens frequently during the colder winter and spring months in Disko Bay, when few open water patches exist in the ice,' Christiansen told Discover Wildlife.
Bowhead whales reside almost exclusively in Arctic and subarctic waters and have become adapted to life in icy water, according to NOAA Fisheries. That includes being able to break through ice to take a breath.
They are so named because of their very large triangular skull that they use to break through heavy ice to come up for air, according to AZ Animals.
Christiansen told Discover Wildlife that a bowhead whale, also referred to as a polar whale and Arctic whale, can break through nearly 2 feet of ice.
Bowhead whales can grow up to 62 feet and weigh up to 200,000 pounds.
Christiansen, who is studying the effects between climate change and how much these mammals are eating, uses a drone to film the huge creatures.
Bowhead whales are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Conservation Act in 1970 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and are listed as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Bowhead whale cracks through ice in order to breathe
