The Ramari beaked whale, so named after Māori whale expert Ramari Stewart, began its journey to becoming its own recognized species after a pregnant beaked whale was found dead on a beach in New Zealand. Lobster fishers sue to block closure meant to aid whalesĪ new, strange species of deep-diving beaked whales that lives at depths over 6,000 feet has been officially identified by scientists as its own unique species, according to a new study. Minke whale likely killed by vessel strike washes up in Rockawaysĭead whale washes onto Jersey shore - 9th one in NY-NJ area in 2 months “It’s just unbelievable what they’re capable of doing.Three dolphins found dead after getting stranded off Jersey Shore “They’re built differently to many of the other cetaceans and even deep-diving cetaceans,” Dr. The whales have little fat, especially around their midsections, which allows them to store more nitrogen, enabling deep dives. “Basically, they’re made of this muscle that can store lots of oxygen,” Dr. Shearer thinks the animals are capable of going deeper - possibly to nearly 2.5 miles, but tracking devices don’t work below about 2 miles.ĭiane Claridge, executive director of the Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organisation said recent research suggests that at least part of the answer may lie in the Cuvier’s muscles. Schorr in a 2014 study, was just under 1.9 miles. Her team tracked a few dives of over 1.7 miles, and the longest dive ever recorded, by Mr. It’s not entirely clear how they manage to dive so deep, she said. Killer whales and large sharks are the only creatures large enough to eat the Cuvier’s, which range in length from a mid-sized car to a good-sized van.Īlthough diving capacity usually increases with size, Cuvier’s beaked whales dive longer and deeper than larger whales, and are about half the size of sperm whales, which are the second best deep-divers, Ms. (The deepest scuba dive on record was 1090 feet in 2014.) The whales would spend an average of just over two minutes at the surface, before plunging again.Īt night, they sometimes spent longer intervals near the surface, perhaps because they were less concerned about being spotted by predators, said Jeanne Shearer, the paper’s lead author and a doctoral student at the Duke University Marine Lab. These were followed by several shallower dives of about 918 feet - nearly two-tenths of a mile - lasting from 15 to 20 minutes, the study found. They took deep dives of about a mile, swimming a half-hour down and the same back up. Researchers tagged 11 Cuvier’s beaked whales for an average of a month, tracking the length and depths of their dives. “When you’re looking for an animal that can hold its breath for the duration of a feature-length movie, it’s a matter of odds and time on the water,” says Greg Schorr, a researcher with the nonprofit conservation and tag development company, Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research.Ī new study, published Wednesday in Royal Society Open Science, is the first to look at a population of these whales that lives off Cape Hatteras, N.C. But biologists still know very little about them, because they only surface for a few minutes between most dives, taxing the patience of whale experts, as well as the ability of electronic tags to upload information, before the whales plunge again into the depths. They can dive deeper and hold their breath longer than any other marine mammal. Cuvier’s beaked whales are among the most mysterious and adept mammals on Earth.
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