Whales dont spray water from their blowholes and other myths, debunked
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Whales distribute important nutrients throughout the ocean while sharks, as top predators, keep prey species in check to ensure the ecosystem remains balanced. With so much yet to learn about the ocean, it’s vital to dispel misconceptions so people around the world understand how to keep the entire ecosystem safe and healthy for future generations. A bowhead whale killed in 2007 by Eskimos was found to have carried a harpoon point in its neck for more than a hundred years. Some think that the hairs may be used to detect changes in water currents or turbulence.
Protecting Endangered Species through Off-Season Surveys
But a resounding slap of the tail seemed to send the fish into a panic and bunch together, making the bubble nets more effective. By 1989, about half the Eastern humpback populations were using the trick and the whales were learning it from their peers. Both orcas and sperm whales use group-specific calls that help them communicate with individuals in their social group. For orcas, calls are often used to identify one another and coordinate unified hunting. Sperm whales also produce a series of sounds that are unique to their specific social group.
Do Whales Have Hairs?
Marine tourism in Baja California Sur generates 300 million dollars a year and supports roughly 2,000 people. Only 16 boats are allowed in the lagoon at once, and fishing is suspended when the whales come for the season, a management strategy that hopes to ensure the whales will continue to return. Pods consist of roughly 20 to 50 individuals, and at times several pods join to create massive groups of up to 100 individuals.
Animals
Scientists could not agree as to whether or not the ventral plates of the mouth expanded when diving or rising, and this issue presented a significant problem in designing the blue whale model. Not only can the whales die from blockage of their stomach or intestines, sharp plastic shards can also pierce intestinal lining, and they can starve due to feeling falsely full from a stomach full of plastic with no nutrients. As filter feeders, baleen whales suck in large volumes of water to catch the fish and krill required to sustain their massive sizes, and discriminating between food and plastic is impossible. Toothed whales can also unknowingly consume plastic hidden within their prey.
One of those adaptations is the presence of hair on their bodies and fins. Although most cetaceans lose their hair as they mature, the hair that remains serves an important role in thermoregulation, sensory organs, protection from external elements, and even communication. Like other mammals, whales have hairs, but they are not located in the same way as in other mammals. The hair follicles in whales are found where land mammals would have whiskers today. While some whales, such as baleen whales, still have hair follicles, these hairs are not for insulation, unlike in other mammals like polar bears.
Whales expel air—not water—from their blowholes
They can also cut off blood flow to the extremities, keeping the oxygenated blood by the heart and brain. Other air spaces, like ear canals and sinuses, are lined with special tissues that reduce pressure. This is just one of many misconceptions about whales that can be disproven by science. People are commonly surprised when they hear that not all whales can sing. These animals also can’t breathe underwater, and they don’t actually spray water from their blowholes.
The team found that the hairs closer to the whales' blowholes were thicker than the hairs on their chins and rostrums. The placement of these hairs leads the team to believe these hair patches may have specialized functions. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) have tubercles, large visible bumps typically on the head, and inside each tubercle is a hair follicle.
Baleen whales are sometimes called the ‘great whales’ due to their overall larger size. These whales have baleen plates in their mouths to sift their food - plankton, krill (little shrimps) and small fish - from seawater. Rice’s whales can weigh up to 60,000 pounds (that is 30 tons), which is about five times as heavy as an elephant, and they can grow up to 42 feet long.
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Here are some extraordinary facts about whales and their lives in the oceans. The 1903 blue whale model met its end around 1960, when it was replaced by a new, even bigger blue whale model. In the 1950s the Smithsonian began an institution-wide exhibits modernization program, and many halls of the Natural History building were completely renovated at this time. The new hall dedicated to Life in the Seas was to have as its centerpiece a state-of-the art model of a blue whale in mid-motion. The documentary The Cove was instrumental in spreading awareness about a particular slaughter event that occurs in Taiji, Japan.
She still bears a scar below her right lip from that encounter, which you can see on the model and which scientists use to help identify her in the waters of the Atlantic. National Museum (today the National Museum of Natural History) opened in 1910, it was moved across the Mall, mounted on a pedestal, and placed at the center on the Hall of Marine Life. For fifty years the seventy-eight-foot cast of the blue whale enchanted visitors to the Museum. Today, the museum’s whale collection includes over 30,000 specimens, the largest in the world.
The first recorded cetacean in captivity was a beluga whale that lived in the Boston Aquarial and Zoological Gardens (PDF) in 1861. The vocalizations of bottlenose dolphins are some of the best studied among cetaceans. They use a diverse array of whistles, and in some places around the world “pops” and “brays.” Each individual also has a personal whistle, similar to a name, that it uses to broadcast its identity and location. Dolphins can also learn the signature whistles of others, and will call back and forth to one another when they meet.
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