This has been posted multiple other places but seemed interesting enough to post here. The clip is from the new Attenborough series “Life”:
This is yet another case of clever animals quickly adapting their behavior in beneficial, clever ways (see my earlier post on orcas to see another example).
Check out the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary newsletter from spring of 2002 that first reports this behavior.
I am currently writing a couple science-based articles, one of which is focused on noise pollution which has a good dose of info on the nature of sound in the sea, some comments on natural sources of ambient marine noise, etc.
I am including some stellar online resources and can’t help but post a few of these here as I go along.
There is a spectacular website called “Voices of the Sea” with recordings of multiple species of cetaceans and pinnipeds available to listen to. The website is visually very slick and the sound files play effortlessly. There are also various videos with more info on species. I also like how they show the sound spectograms while the calls are playing to let you know the frequencies of the sounds you are hearing. (Just an FYI, it is somewhat likely at least a couple of these calls have undergone some audio manipulation to bring them within the range of human hearing….).
Cornell University, who hosts a well-known bio-acoustics program, hosts a Right Whale Listening Network , and their research has been essential in the study and protection of these very endangered animals.
During a right whale ecology cruise I was part of, I’ve also been able to view the deployment and retrieval first hand of some of their pop-bouys which are used for acoustic research. It’s pretty interesting business. The buoys are deployed with sandbags to keep them weighted down. They are retrieved at night (for the sake of making them easier to find, once at the surface they employ a sort of strobe light). Once the ship is close enough, a researcher sends them a “burn” signal which is a communication with the buoy telling it to release anchor (i can’t quite remember the specifics of hot the buoy does this…) and pop-up to the surface. The ship then unceremoniously navigates close by and they’re grabbed with a long hook (think of the kind of hook you’d envision really terrible preformers being pulled offstage with). On the same cruise I was also able to hear some recordings of Atlantic white-sided dolphins captured via hydrophone.
This is one story I had heard about in college and find really fascinating. Killer whales, more formally known as Orcas, have subdivisions of their species that behave in drastically different ways .
Apparently, the title of whale is often considered a misnomer as these guys are supposedly genetically dolphins (as they are in the Delphinidae family). However, this leaves me a little confused as all dolphins are part of the larger classification, the suborder Odontoceti, or toothed whales. Apparently there is not total agreement as to whether dolphins are really just toothed whales. But I digress…
At any rate. They’ve (you know… the disembodied “they”? Guess I should change this to a more appropiate but no less vauge “researchers”) found that orcas have several different ecotypes. This means basically that there are subgroups of orcas that are adapted to different living conditions. There are three described killer whale ecotypes which include offshore, transient, and resident orcas.
The least studied ecotype is the offshore Orcas. They are a fairly recent discover. These dolphins (whales?) are found further from the coast than the other two types, and appear to be genetically and phenologically distinct.You might describe them as orcas gone rogue =).
Both resident and transient orcas will often be found closer inland. Resident populations tend to be the social butterflies of the species. They form larger pods and tend to be more tightly knit. They are piscivorous (fish) feeders.
Transient pods are smaller, usually no larger than six individuals. They are stealthier hunters, focusing their attention on marine mammals as prey. Transient orcas also had an interesting role in the disappearance of Alaskan sea otters. Sea otters were considered keystone species in the local foodweb and their disappearance led to a proliferation in sea urchins which in turn led to the decline of kelp beds that provide invaluable habitat for other organisms.
A Bit of Stardust 