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Wildlife authorities in North Carolina have reported that a decapitated dolphin was discovered on Lea-Hutaff Island. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries’ law enforcement office stated the dolphin was initially found on the island intact. Days later, when members of the marine mammal stranding team from the University of North Carolina Wilmington arrived on the island to evaluate the dolphin, they discovered its head was cut off. The office stated, “This animal was intentionally decapitated, a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The remote location where the dolphin was found adds to the difficulty of investigating this incident...

Sperm whales communicate with each other using rhythmic sequences of clicks, called codas. It was previously thought that sperm whales had just 21 coda types. However, after studying almost 9,000 recordings, the Ceti researchers identified 156 distinct codas. They also noticed the basic building blocks of these codas which they describe as a "sperm whale phonetic alphabet" – much like phonemes, the units of sound in human language which combine to form words. Pratyusha Sharma, a PhD student at MIT and lead author of the study, describes the "fine-grain changes" in vocalisations the AI identified. Each coda consists of between...

A mysterious sound heard booming from deep under the ocean waves has finally been traced to a fascinating source. First recorded in 2014 in the west Pacific, the "biotwang" is actually the call of the Bryde's whale (Balaenoptera brydei) traveling long distances in the open ocean. What's more, the techniques used to identify the sound have led to the development of a new tool for understanding whale populations and how they move about in and inhabit Earth's enigmatic seas. "Bryde's whales occur worldwide in tropical and warm temperate waters, but their population structure and movements are not well understood," writes...

Carcasses can explode if left to decompose on land and should be towed back to sea ‘where they belong’, experts say Two mass strandings in Tasmanian waters in a week has left about 200 pilot whales and 14 sperm whales dead. On Monday, 14 juvenile sperm whales died and washed ashore at King Island, in Bass Strait. Approximately 230 pilot whales became stranded on Ocean Beach, west of the Tasmanian town of Strahan on Wednesday. In 2017, a New South Wales council buried an 18-tonne humpback whale at Port Macquarie’s Nobbys beach and then excavated it a week later, due...

More than 30 million years ago, the Peruvian sea was home to one of the largest predators to ever emerge in the ocean. Its colossal size has surprised the scientific community.Species endangered by this fearsome marine animal that remained hidden in the Peruvian sea. In 2021, one of the most important discoveries ever recorded in the country was announced. It was only at the beginning of 2022 that the first assessments of the skeletal remains of Peru's so-called 'sea monster', an ancient whale considered one of the largest predators that existed 36 million years ago, were reported. Its impressive size...

I’ve been sick the last couple of weeks, and have had energy for the absolutely necessary – and the nice distractions! I thought I’d share with you some of the things that have distracted me from my personal issues, and from the larger issues that most of us are facing. I guess it isn’t a surprise that I’ve been drawn, for distraction, to people and places who aren’t really dealing with all the cr*p that many of us are. One of the websites I’ve greatly enjoyed has been ‘Whippoorwill Holler’, offered by Mr. and Mrs. Brown in Northeast Arkansas. Lately,...

(CNN)Fishermen off Norway's northern coast were astonished last week when they spotted a beluga whale wearing a harness, complete with mounts for a camera. And according to marine experts, the mammal's backstory may be even stranger: They believe it was trained by the Russian military. Fishermen Joar Hesten was the first to encounter the whale, off the coast of Finnmark, a county in northeastern Norway. Hesten then contacted the country's Directorate of Fisheries. The whale was friendly and playful, witnesses said. Jorgen Ree Wiig, a marine biologist at the directorate, told CNN: "The whale seemed playful but our instincts said...

Counting whales has never been easy—boats, even planes, can travel limited distances, and catching site of these giant cetaceans is hit or miss. Now, researchers at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge have demonstrated that they can tally at least four different species using satellite images taken 600 kilometers above the ocean. Previously, satellite cameras were of no use in whale spotting. Their resolution, which maxed out at 46 centimeters, made most whales look like undistinguishable blobs. But the new privately owned WorldView-3 satellite, which has a resolution of 31 centimeters, enabled BAS graduate student Hannah Cubaynes to count...

Whales and dolphins (cetaceans) live in tightly-knit social groups, have complex relationships, talk to each other and even have regional dialects -- much like human societies. A major new study has linked the complexity of Cetacean culture and behavior to the size of their brains.

LONDON (Reuters) - A lone whale, with a voice unlike any other, has been wandering the Pacific for the past 12 years, American marine biologists said Wednesday. Using signals recorded by the US navy to track submarines, they traced the movement of whales in the Northern Pacific and found that a lone whale singing at a frequency of around 52 hertz has cruised the ocean since 1992. Its calls, despite being clearly those of a baleen, do not match those of any known species of whale, which usually call at frequencies of between 15 and 20 hertz. The mammal does...

Global Bycatch Nets Some 308,000 Cetaceans a Year WASHINGTON, DC, June 12, 2003 (ENS) - Some 308,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises - collectively known as cetaceans - die each year from entanglement in fishing gear, finds new research by U.S. and British scientists. The study, which was submitted today to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), is the first global estimate of cetacean deaths caused by fishing bycatch. "This level of bycatch is no doubt significantly depleting and disrupting many populations of whales, dolphins and porpoises," said lead researcher Andy Read of Duke University, who is co chair of World...