A beaked whale also holds the mammalian record for the longest dive; 222 minutes.Now, the world gets a brand-new and surprising insight into the world of far-off beaked whales through a clinical study of a population of Bairds beaked whales.”We were there to look for killer whales and humpback whales, so we simply noted that we had seen a group of Bairds beaked whales and didnt do much about it. We saw them every year up until 2020, when Covid-19 prevented us from going back to the Commander Islands,” discusses Olga Filatova, a whale expert and postdoc at the Department of Biology and SDU Climate Cluster, University of Southern Denmark.A Bairds beaked whale off the Commander Islands.”It ends up being a cultural custom, and it is the first time a cultural custom has actually been observed amongst beaked whales,” she says.Other examples of cultural traditions in whales include when they establish particular searching customs: some slap their tails to stun fish, some create waves to clean seals off ice floes, and some chase fish onto the beach.The researchers observed an overall of 186 people of the Bairds beaked whale types at the Commander Islands from 2008-2019. It must be in that contact that they found out about the shallow water and its advantages,” states Olga Filatova.It is unclear how many Bairds beaked whales exist in the world.Reference: “Unusual usage of shallow habitats might be evidence of a cultural custom in Bairds beaked whales” by O.A. Filatova, I.D. Fedutin, I.G. Meschersky, E.G. Mamaev and E. Hoyt, 22 January 2024, Animal Behaviour.DOI: 10.1016/ j.anbehav.2023.12.021 The research study was supported by Rufford Small Grants, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Animal Welfare Institut and the Russian Fund for Fundamental Research.
A beaked whale likewise holds the mammalian record for the longest dive; 222 minutes.Now, the world gets a unexpected and new insight into the world of far-off beaked whales through a clinical study of a population of Bairds beaked whales.”It ends up being a cultural tradition, and it is the first time a cultural custom has actually been observed amongst beaked whales,” she says.Other examples of cultural traditions in whales include when they establish particular hunting traditions: some slap their tails to stun fish, some generate waves to clean seals off ice floes, and some chase fish onto the beach.The researchers observed a total of 186 individuals of the Bairds beaked whale species at the Commander Islands from 2008-2019. It must be in that contact that they found out about the shallow water and its benefits,” states Olga Filatova.It is unclear how lots of Bairds beaked whales exist in the world.Reference: “Unusual use of shallow environments may be proof of a cultural tradition in Bairds beaked whales” by O.A. Filatova, I.D. Fedutin, I.G. Meschersky, E.G. Mamaev and E. Hoyt, 22 January 2024, Animal Behaviour.DOI: 10.1016/ j.anbehav.2023.12.021 The research study was supported by Rufford Small Grants, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Animal Welfare Institut and the Russian Fund for Fundamental Research.