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A newly discovered fossil of a four-legged whale in Peru sheds new light on the evolution of whales and their journey across the oceans. ***************************************************************** A fascinating new discovery has been made off the coast of Peru, where paleontologists have unearthed the remains of a previously unknown four-legged whale species. This remarkable find, which was made about 42.6 million years ago during the middle Eocene, is shedding new light on the evolutionary transition of whales from land-dwelling mammals to the aquatic giants we recognize today. As reported in Current Biology, the whale species, named Peregocetus pacificus, was found in the...

Astonishing footage captured the moment a kayaker was swallowed whole by a humpback whale off Chilean Patagonia for a few seconds — before he was miraculously spit back out. Adrian Simancas was kayaking in the Strait of Magellan in Bahía El Águila last Saturday when the beast emerged from the water and easily devoured the young man and his yellow kayak, according to video incidentally captured by his father, Dell, who was trailing behind. “I thought it had already eaten me and swallowed me,” he told the Associated Press.“ Yes, at first I thought I had died,” Adrian added. “It...

A group of orcas off the west coast of North America has brought back a bizarre fashion trend not seen since the late 1980s: wearing a single dead salmon on their heads as if it were a hat. Experts are at a loss to explain why orcas would want to wear fish in the first place, let alone why they would want to bring back the practice almost 40 years after it stopped. The salmon hat craze was first observed in 1987 when a female orca in the Puget Sound area of the northeast Pacific was seen carrying a solitary...

Marine biologists are taking a closer look after the remains of a young minke whale washed ashore in New Jersey Friday — less than 24 hours after another dead whale was found floating off Staten Island. On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard spotted a 16- to 18-foot-long whale “floating in the Lower Bay/Raritan Bay area.” A tracking tag was planted on the carcass, which federal investigators with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration anticipate will land near Sandy Hook, NJ, within days. Once ashore, the deceased animal will be examined.

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...

Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that he is being investigated by federal authorities for collecting the head from a decapitated whale carcass. During a campaign event on Saturday for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, in Glendale, Arizona, the former independent presidential candidate said: “I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago.” He added: “This is all about the weaponization of our government against political opponents.” Kennedy, who endorsed the former president after dropping out of November’s election, fell under scrutiny in recent weeks...

“There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,” says Amund Preede Revheim with Norway’s Southwest Police District. The famous Beluga whale was found dead in the waters outside Stavanger on August 31. Nicknamed Hvaldimir (Whaledimir) by the Norwegians because of his Russian origin, the death of the Beluga made world-wide headlines. So also when the animal rights’ group OneWhale last week claimed a bullet hole was found, a strong indications that the whale had been shot. The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries requested the Veterinary Institute to conduct an autopsy of the whale. “We have...

Hvaldimir became Norway’s celebrity whale because of his many interactions with humans. Marine organizations were working to secure his transport to open waters when he was found dead over the weekend.The Beluga whale made famous for the "Russian spy" harness he was found wearing off the coast of Norway died over the weekend as volunteers said they were close to securing his release to open waters. The white Beluga whale named "Hvaldimir" was discovered close to the Russian/Norwegian maritime border in 2019 wearing a Russian camera harness, sparking rumors that he was used as a spy, according to Marine Mind,...

Orcas relentlessly battered a yacht in a “terrifying” two-hour attack that didn’t end until the $128,680 vessel sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. ... they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it... “Their sole intention was to sink the boat ... The five orcas circled the 39-foot sailing boat and took turns smashing it to bits .. in a coordinated assault Powell compared to the carnage of wolves. ... The pod of five first focused on the rudder,...

Whale watchers were treated to a rare sight on Sunday afternoon. After a trip to Monterey Bay to see humpback whales, the captain aboard a Discovery Whale Watch boat noticed a spout and saw it belonged to a sperm whale. Sperm whales spend between 30 and 60 minutes underwater at a time and can be hard to predict, but the company's drone was able to catch a video of the whale surfacing, per a spokesperson from Discovery Whale Watch. When it dove underwater, they could hear it on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute hydrophone, an underwater microphone that can...

In the same way that scientists have studied Antarctica for what insights could prove valuable for a Mars mission, the Whale-SETI group said its studies with humpback whales can help them develop “intelligence filters” used in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. A team that includes a UC Davis professor and a scientist with SETI, the organization that searches the cosmos for signs of alien intelligence, has cited a breakthrough here on Earth – a 20-minute “conversation” with a humpback whale in the wild. The Templeton Whale-SETI group said its findings on what it calls “non-human intelligence communication” could help in...

It might sound like a scene out of Avatar 2. But scientists claim it's now possible to have a conversation with a whale, following a 20-minute chat with a humpback whale in Southeast Alaska. A 38-year-old whale named Twain 'spoke' with the researchers from the SETI Institute and UC Davis by responding to a pre-recorded 'contact call'. This marks the first communication between humans and whales in their own language, according to the team. Looking ahead, the researchers say the conversation could pave the way for interactions with aliens in the future. In the study, researchers from SETI studied how...

A 30-foot humpback whale was found dead on the shores of Fire Island on Friday morning — at least the 18th doomed humpback discovered on the East Coast this year. The tragic majestic mammal was found belly-up on the eastern side of Smith Point County Park in Shirley, Long Island, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. The animal’s body has been collected for a necropsy, NOAA told Patch in a statement. The cause of death is unknown.

Twitter Two kayakers were nearly swallowed by a humpback whale while trying to go whale watching off the coast of Avila Beach, California. The whale's attack on Julie McSorley and Liz Cottriel's kayak, who miraculously escaped unharmed from the animal's blow, was recorded from the kayak itself by the two friends and other witnesses to the event.

Team JAJO had some special –– and terrifying –– visitors while sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar as part of the 2023 Ocean Race on Thursday. A group of orcas, otherwise known as killer whales, surrounded the Dutch crew’s yacht, first circling the boat and then ramming into it. “This was a scary moment,” Jelmer van Beek, Team JAJO skipper, said, according to the Associated Press. “Three orcas came straight at us and started hitting the rudders. Impressive to see the orcas, beautiful animals, but also a dangerous moment for us as a team.” Some of Team JAJO’s crew banged...

The sixth century historian Procopius, in both his History of the Wars, and The Secret History, mentions a sea monster--a gigantic whale--named Porphyrios that dwelt in the Bosporus Strait and the Black Sea, and which terrorized the shipping lanes around Constantinople for about fifty years, and which causes significant headaches for the Emperor Justinian & the Roman navy. Our information is fairly limited, but what can we say about this real life Moby Dick?SOURCES:The Secret History, ProcopiusThe History of the Wars, ProcopiusA Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities, KaldellisPinned by The Historian's CraftPorphyrios: The Sea Monster that Terrorized the Late Roman Empire3:51...

Conservative watchdog groups ran a guerrilla-style ad campaign on the New Jersey shore for Earth Day, drawing attention to a surge in whale deaths amid the growth of offshore wind farms. Beachgoers in Atlantic City on Saturday looked on as a single-propeller plane carried a a message waving from a banner — “SAVE-WHALES-STOP-WINDMILLS.ORG” — and drivers heading out of town saw a billboard with the same message and a picture of a dead whale washed ashore.

The ocean is one of the planet’s great carbon sinks, absorbing nearly a third of the atmosphere’s greenhouse gas emissions. Swimming in its depths are the great whales, a population whose sheer physical mass allows them to exert an outsized influence on the ecosystem around them. While researchers have long suspected that whales are key players in the ocean’s carbon cycle, quantifying exactly how these animals alter the seas — and what we lost with their decimation a century ago — has proved difficult. Now a group of scientists has taken that challenge on. A team of ecologists, biologists and...

You would have to be hiding under a rock to miss this video this week. But if somehow didn’t catch it, here it is. The video was filmed during a whale watching excursion in Gustavus, Alaska. The guests sure got what they paid for. I’m glad they come away just a little wet and with a great story to tell.

On her podcast, Fast Politics, author and journalist Molly Jong-Fast asked Gisele Barreto Fetterman, wife of Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate, John Fetterman, about an interview of her husband that resulted in controversy and accusations of ableism this week. Mrs. Fetterman expressed outrage that the reporter has not faced any “consequences” for it. When NBC News reporter Dasha Burns interviewed the Pennsylvania candidate, he relied on a closed-caption display as a visual aid, due to what he and his campaign have characterized as “audio processing” issues he’s experienced following a stroke this year. While talking about the interview, Burns noted that...