Marine Mammals, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 31, 2003

Unlikely Cousins: Whales and Hippos

If the idea of whales being mammals has always seemed a bit wild, then you'll probably be surprised to learn that the giant aquatic beasts are pretty closely related to the hippopotamus. Scientists have been wrangling over these relations for centuries. One theory had been that hippos were related to...

Sep 30, 2005

Navy Sued Over Sonar's Effects on Whales

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) _ Environmentalists sued the Navy on Wednesday, claiming that a widely used form of sonar for detecting enemy submarines disturbs and sometimes kills whales and dolphins. The sonar is capable of flooding thousands of square miles of ocean with dangerous levels of noise pollution,'' according to...

Jan 31, 2005

Ship Noise Drowns Out Whale Talk, a Threat to Mating

WASHINGTON D.C. - Whale songs can travel thousands of miles, but an increasingly noisy ocean is drastically cutting down their ability to communicate, shows new research that suggests ever-increasing noise could impede the beasts' ability to navigate and find mates. Whales sing at a low frequency, at the very bottom...

Oct 31, 2006

Dolphin May Have 'Remains' of Legs

TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of hind legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land. Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin alive off the...

Aug 31, 2006

Scientists Protest Dolphin Slaughter

Each September a months-long ritual starts up again in the Japanese villages of Taiji and Futo. Fishermen herd hundreds of dolphins into shallow bays by banging on partially submerged rods. Researchers say the dolphins are corralled into nets and then speared, hooked, hoisted by their tails [image], and finally eviscerated...

May 31, 2006

Speed Limit Proposed to Save Whales

The U.S. Fisheries Service on Friday proposed a speed limit for ships 65 feet and longer to reduce accidental killing of right whales. A limit of 10 knots would apply during certain times of year in three regions along the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Southeast U.S. coast. Federal ships would be...

Feb 28, 2006

Grammar Revealed in the Love Songs of Whales

The love song of a humpback whale sounds magnificently free-flowing and improvised to the casual human listener. But fresh mathematical analysis of shows there are complex grammatical rules. Using syntax, the whales combine sounds into phrases, which they further weave into hours-long melodies packed with information. Although the researchers say...

Jan 31, 2006

Marine Mammals Suffer Human Diseases

ST. LOUIS—Parasites from cat feces are causing deadly brain damage in California sea otters. A combination of toxic chemicals and herpes virus is killing off California sea lions. And toxic algae blooms are contributing to record manatee deaths in Florida. All of these animals live near coastlines, spending a majority...

Jul 31, 2007

Dolphin Species Goes Extinct Due to Humans

The Yangtze River dolphin is now almost certainly extinct, making it the first dolphin that humans drove to extinction, scientists have now concluded after an intense search for the endangered species. The loss also represents the first global extinction of megafauna—any creature larger than about 200 pounds (100 kilograms)—for more...

Mar 31, 2007

Whales Break Distance Record With 5,100-Mile Migration

A group of humpback whales seeking balmier waters have traveled a record-breaking 5,100 miles, the longest-ever documented migration undertaken by a mammal. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Southern Hemisphere are known to migrate from their high-latitude feeding areas in polar waters, rich in shrimp-like critters, to more tropical regions...

Apr 30, 2008

Slow Down: Whale Crossing

The thirteen buoys of the Right Whale Listening Network listen for endangered right whales crossing shipping channels, and provide a warning to ships to slow down. The smart buoys were developed at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The busy shipping lanes in Massachusetts Bay (and...

Apr 30, 2009

Good News: Rare Blue Whales on the Move

Blue whales, the world's largest animals, are on the move. These marine mammals migrated from California waters to areas off Canada and Alaska for the first time since commercial whaling ended in 1965, researchers announced recently. The researchers identified 15 blue whales that have appeared off the coast of British...

Jan 31, 2009

Ancient Whales Gave Birth on Land

More than 47 million years ago, a whale was about to give birth to her young … on land. That's according to skeletal remains of a pregnant cetacean whose fetus was positioned head-down as is the case for land mammals but not aquatic whales. The teeth of the fetus were...

Sep 30, 2011

Antarctic Killer Whales Treat Skin with a Tropical Vacation

In a little over a month, Antarctic killer whales trek from their chilly residence to the warm waters off the coast of South America and back, researchers have found. The whales spend their tropical vacation letting their skin slough off, replacing the old with new. It was a surprise to...

Nov 30, 2012

Whale Whodunit: How Investigators Solve Marine Deaths

Sometimes the bodies show up floating in the ocean, other times they wash ashore. Then it's up to investigators to figure out what happened. Whales, like humans, can meet unnatural ends. The bodies they leave behind can tell a story about what killed them, sometimes revealing evidence of a prolonged,...