Baleen whales are heavy drinkers. In just ten seconds, these giant mammals can down over five hundred bathtubs of ocean water, filtering out roughly 10 kilograms of krill in a single swig.
All they have to do is open their mouths and lunge forward at roughly 10 kilometers an hour (6 miles per hour).
The pressure of all that water rapidly hitting a whale's throat would surely be immense. So how does this group of creatures – which includes right whales, the humpback whale, and the monumental blue whale, amongst several others – make sure their lungs aren't suddenly flooded with water?
The dissection of several fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) has now revealed a fatty and muscular sac that stops the species from choking. When the whale opens its mouth to feed, this sac swings upwards and plugs the lower respiratory tract.
No such structure has ever been identified in any other animal, but the authors suspect it is probably present in other lunge-feeding whales (called rorquals), like humpbacks and blue whales.
"There are very few animals with lungs that feed by engulfing prey and water, so the oral plug is likely a protective structure specific to rorquals that is necessary to enable lunge feeding," explains zoologist Kelsey Gil from the University of British Columbia, Canada. READ MORE...
When a killer whale slowly circled back toward wildlife photographer Brian Skerry in the middle of the ocean after discarding the giant sting ray it was devouring, panic is not what came to mind: "Part of my brain is thinking, 'I can't believe what I'm seeing,'" recalled Skerry. "'Don't screw it up.'"
It's a fascinating moment between man and ocean predator revealed in "Secrets of the Whales," a new National Geographic docuseries premiering on Disney+. The incredible four-part series follows various whale species across 24 locations around the globe.
"The latest greatest science is showing that they have cultures, they have traditions," said Skerry, who released a book of the same title earlier this month. "If we can begin to see our planet through the lens of culture with these charismatic ambassadors for the ocean, maybe it's a bit of a game changer—we change our view of how we see our own planet."
Executive produced by Academy Award-winning director James Cameron and narrated by Oscar nominee Sigourney Weaver, the series is split into four episodes focusing individually on orcas (killer whales), humpbacks and belugas, with the final episode featuring both sperm whales and narwhals.
Cameron is no stranger to the world's oceans. In 2012, he dove a deep sea submarine he built nearly 7 miles down to the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. The filmmaker, who's produced various-ocean themed projects, documented the dive in his film "Deepsea Challenge 3D."
"What this series strove to do was to make them a who, not a what," said Cameron from his New Zealand editing studio where he's working on "Avatar 2." "What we learn from what we see, including a lot of things that have never been recorded before, is that they are people. They have family bonds… They have love. They have grief. They're very much like us in many ways." TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...
