Search Results for: Cetacean

Animals

‘Wonderful nets’ of blood vessels protect dolphin and whale brains during dives

Complex networks of blood vessels called retia mirabilia that are associated with cetaceans’ brains and spines have long been a mystery.

Life

Orca moms baby their adult sons. That favoritism pays off — eventually

By sharing fish with their adult sons, orca moms may skimp on nutrition, cutting their chances of more offspring but boosting the odds for grandwhales.

Animals

Gory footage confirms orca pods can kill adult blue whales

For the first time, three recorded events show that orcas do hunt and eat blue whales using coordinated attacks that have worked on other large whales.

Life

Losing genes may have helped whales’ ancestors adapt to life under the sea

Jettisoning genes tied to saliva and the lungs, among others, could have smoothed ancient cetaceans’ land-to-water transition 50 million years ago.

Animals

Naked mole-rat colonies speak with unique dialects

Machine learning reveals that these social rodents communicate with distinctive speech patterns that are culturally inherited.

Animals

Dolphins can learn from peers how to use shells as tools

While most foraging skills are picked up from mom, some bottlenose dolphins seem to look to their peers to learn how to trap prey in shells.

Animals

Why mammals like elephants and armadillos might get drunk easily

Differences in a gene for breaking down alcohol could help explain which mammals get tipsy.

Animals

Parasitic worm populations are skyrocketing in some fish species used in sushi

Fishes worldwide harbor 283 times the number of Anisakis worms as fishes in the 1970s. Whether that’s a sign of environmental decline or recovery is unclear.

Animals

Why some whales are giants and others are just big

Being big helps whales access more food. But how big a whale can get is influenced by whether it hunts for individual prey or filter-feeds.

Genetics

DNA confirms a weird Greenland whale was a narwhal-beluga hybrid

DNA analysis of a skull indicates that the animal had a narwhal mother and beluga father.

Paleontology

Peruvian fossils yield a four-legged otterlike whale with hooves

A newly discovered species of ancient whale unearthed in Peru split time between land and sea.

Animals

‘Spying on Whales’ dives into the story of true leviathans

"Spying on Whales" retraces the evolution of cetaceans, explaining how they came to be some of Earth’s largest creatures.