A Special Song
Stretching 100 feet in length and weighing up to 380,000 pounds, the blue whale remains the largest animal to have ever lived on Earth.
But its sheer size doesn’t mean that the marine creature can’t be sneaky to scientists, the New York Times reported.
Recently, researchers came across a previously unknown pod of whales that has been lurking around the Indian Ocean for a long time, according to a new study.
The research team said that the sneaky population had its own signature song that distinguishes it from other previously recorded whale songs: Only a dozen or so songs have been documented, each defining a unique population.
“It’s like hearing different songs within a genre – Stevie Ray Vaughan versus B. B. King,” said lead author Salvatore Cerchio. “It’s all blues, but you know the different styles.”
Cerchio’s team found the mystery pod after gathering data from three sites spread across the Indian ocean – each separated by hundreds or thousands of miles.
They explained that the distinctive tune of the new pod rules out the possibility that the songs were produced by already known blue whale populations in the ocean.
Their best bet to confirm that would be to do a genetic study on the marine mammals, but blue whales are hard to come by due to their dwindling numbers.
About 10,000 to 25,000 blue whales are believed to still swim and sing around the world.
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