Nat Geo Repost: New Leviathan Whale Attacks

Illustration by C. Letenneur, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France

Evoking the poster for the original summer blockbuster, a new species of killer sperm whale attacks a baleen whale in an illustration.

Dubbed Leviathan melvillei—an homage to Moby-Dick author Herman Melville—the recently unearthed fossil sea monster lived about 13 million years ago in waters atop what’s now a Peruvian desert, according to a study published by the journal Nature on Wednesday.

Living alongside the largest sharks ever known, the raptorial—meaning actively hunting—whale measured about 60 feet (18 meters) in length, about as big as a modern male sperm whale.

But whereas modern sperm whales feed primarily on squid, Leviathan’s large teeth—some of which measured more than a foot (36 centimeters) long—suggest the whale hunted more challenging prey, including perhaps its close whale relatives.

“It was probably a very powerful and frightening animal, so it fits well with the description Melville made of Moby-Dick,” said lead study author Olivier Lambert, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

(Related picture: “Whale Found in Egypt Desert.”)

—Ker Than

Published June 30, 2010

Blue Whales are Barry White?

A new story on Science Daily indicates the pitch of Blue Whale songs worldwide is getting lower. Read the original text here.

The general idea is that the songs of the blue whale, the largest living species of animal on earth, are become lower in pitch than when scientists first began studying the sounds the whales produced. This bizarre news may in fact have positive ramifications for the blue whales. Blue whales populations were severely impacted in the era of whaling and have never really recovered. They are currently categorized as endangered. Scientists guess that in 1960, when they first began capturing these mammals’ vocalizations on tape, the whales needed to sing at a higher pitch because higher pitched noises tended to travel farther in the water. This meant the call for mates could be broadcasted long distances.  As populations start to experience small increases in population growth, the whales may not need their calls to travel as far, and thus can sing them in a lower, more relaxed key.

Cetaceans… the loudmouths of the sea

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.