An international team of scientists who searched out specimens from museums and remote Arctic islands has identified a rare new species of beaked whale that ranges from northern Japan across the Pacific Ocean to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Japanese whalers call the enigmatic black whales “karasu,” the Japanese word for raven. The new species is darker […]
The hotline rings. A whale is in danger. Fishermen report the location of a humpback tangled in tightly twisted fishing lines. An entanglement response team speeds to the coordinates to evaluate the situation. They must make a critical decision—act quickly to remove as much fishing gear as possible, or monitor closely and allow the whale […]
Children’s singer and songwriter Raffi may have brought beluga whales into popular culture with his 1980 song “Baby Beluga,” but surprisingly little is actually known about the life and ecology of these elusive marine mammals that live in some of the world’s most remote, frigid waters. Two distinct populations spend winters in the Bering Sea, […]
A species of bone-eating worm that was believed to have evolved in conjunction with whales has been dated back to prehistoric times when it fed on the carcasses of giant marine reptiles. Scientists at Plymouth University found that Osedax – popularised as the ‘zombie worm’ – originated at least 100 million years ago, and subsisted […]