SECRETS OF THE WHALES

• Newsletters

SECRETS OF THE WHALES

This article is an adaptation of our weekly Animals newsletter that was originally sent out on April 15, 2021. Want this in your inbox? Subscribe here.

By Rachael Bale, ANIMALS Executive Editor
Some people eat with forks; others, with chopsticks. Some people play baseball; others, cricket. Some shake hands; others bow. This is culture.
And culture is what makes us human, right? Isn’t it what sets us apart from all the other animals on Earth? Anthropologists have long said so.
But what about this: There are two groups of orcas in the Pacific Northwest. Their genetics are nearly identical, and for months at a time, they live right next to each other. But one group speaks in shrill squeals and the other adds in monkey-like hoots. One group likes to shimmy along the rocks in shallow waters; the other group headbutts each other. One group leaps out of the water to belly flop; the other hardly ever breaches.
When it comes to dialects, diets, routines, and traditions—from how they care for their young to how they hunt to how they greet each other—even among the same species of dolphin or whale, there’s huge variation.
To suggest that whales and dolphins have culture was once blasphemous, Nat Geo’s Craig Welch writes. Scientists have always taken great pains not to attribute human characteristics to animals. But these types of diverse, learned traditions have been documented not just in orcas but in sperm whales, humpbacks, and belugas (pictured above in Arctic Canada) as well. “We don’t need to anthropomorphize whales [because] many species of whales actually are similar to us in many ways,” Welch says.

This growing body of research not only makes us think differently about what it means to be a whale, but it also forces us to reconsider what makes us human. (Pictured above, an orca chases herring in a a Norwegian fjord. Groups of killer whales have distinct cultural-learned behaviors passed down through generations.)
Check out “Secrets of the Whales” from our May issue, written by Welch and photographed by Nat Geo Explorer Brian Skerry. Included: One of the first images of a sperm whale nursing (below). Scientists had wondered how these mothers gave milk to their long-jawed young. Females have slits that contain hidden nipples. When a calf is hungry, it pushes its jaw into the slit and milk is released, allowing it to feed. Also, hear the world of sounds that whales make in this Nat Geo video.
Do you get this newsletter daily? If not, sign up here or forward to a friend.

TODAY IN A MINUTE

Tiger King follow-up: Many of the big cat owners in the hit Netflix documentary series are facing legal action, and animal advocates say the fallout could change the face of the cub-petting industry, Nat Geo Explorer Sharon Guynup reports. The Tiger King himself—the former owner of a notorious Oklahoma zoo, who goes by the name Joe Exotic—is serving a 22-year sentence on a murder-for-hire plot and animal crimes. Guynup details the fate of him, his fellow tiger breeders, and others in the controversial field.

Finding (another) Nemo? Actually, it’s a new type of peacock spider (pictured above), part of a group of little-known Australian jumping spiders recognized for their vibrant colors and elaborate mating dances. Ecologist Sheryl Holliday was photographing blooming purple orchids when she noticed something tiny jumping out of the frame. She put the image on a Facebook page, where an arachnologist spotted it. After examining samples, the new species was named Maratus nemo, after the heroic orange clownfish of Finding Nemo. Here’s the Nat Geo story. (Note: The Walt Disney Co. is the majority owner of National Geographic Partners.)

Who took my wabbit? Darius, considered the world’s largest rabbit, is missing and possibly stolen, his owner says. Four feet long and weighing 50 pounds, the rabbit apparently was taken Saturday from his enclosure outside a home in a small English village, the New York Times reports. In 2010, Darius was crowned the world’s longest rabbit by the Guinness World Records, and he once was insured for $1.6 million and traveled with a bodyguard. His owner, a model-turned-rabbit breeder, would appear with him dressed as Jessica Rabbit.
Ants that can shrink their brains: First off, why would Indian jumping ants do that? If the queens die, workers host bizarre competitions in which the winner becomes the monarch—and capable of producing eggs, Troy Farah writes for Nat Geo. New research shows that the triumphant female ant’s ovaries expand and her brain shrinks up to 25 percent. If a queen is taken off her pedestal and reverts back to a worker, however, the ovaries will shrink again and the brain regrows. That extraordinary feat, Farah writes, was not previously known to occur in insects.
Teaching falconing: As a kid on the streets of Washington, D.C., Rodney Stotts couldn’t tell the difference between a pigeon and a peregrine falcon. However, Stotts became a master falconer and for decades has been teaching teens about the discipline. “The first time I held a bird, period, it took me somewhere else,” Stotts
tells the Christian Science Monitor. He saw himself change for the better as he cared for the raptors, many of which don’t reach adulthood.

INSTAGRAM PHOTO OF THE DAY

Just rolling off: You’ve probably heard the expression “like water off a duck’s back.” Here’s where that idiom comes from. The spectacled eider’s feathers are so waterproof that the water just beads up and rolls off. This image of the near-threatened species, which breeds on the coasts of Alaska and Siberia, attracted nearly a million Instagram likes. Nat Geo Explorer Tim Laman photographed this male at the Ripley Waterfowl Conservancy in Connecticut, which maintains genetic diversity of rare and endangered species. The National Geographic Society has funded Laman’s work documenting rare and endangered birds.
Subscriber exclusive: 15 amazing Tim Laman photos of birds of paradise

THE BIG TAKEAWAY

Mystery die-off: Each winter, gray whales migrate from their feeding grounds in Alaska to tranquil estuaries along Mexico’s Pacific coast. In recent years, an unexplained die-off has reduced the gray whale population by a quarter. Those that complete the journey have been arriving later and much skinnier than in the past, Kate Linthicum writes for Nat Geo. The decline has an economic impact in coastal Mexican towns, where whale watching tourism is an important part of the economy. (Above, photographer and Nat Geo Explorer Meghan Dhaliwal captures an adult gray whale swimming off the coast of Baja California Sur.)

This work was supported in part by the National Geographic Society’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists.

DID A FRIEND FORWARD THIS TO YOU?

Come back tomorrow for Whitney Johnson on the latest in photography news. If you’re not a subscriber, sign up here to also get Debra Adams Simmons on history, George Stone on travel, and Victoria Jaggard on science.

THE LAST GLIMPSE

Why do male gorillas beat their chests? Remarkably little research has been done on the phenomenon, but a new study characterizes the move as “honest signal of competitive ability”—not unlike an alligator’s rumble or bison’s bellow. More than a visual display, the chest-thumping and accompanying roar (pictured above) often forestall violence, and the key deterrent may be sound—the bigger mountain gorillas had lower voices, Jason Bittel reports. The National Geographic Society funded in part the research, which took place in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park.

This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard and Monica Williams, with photo selections by Jen Tse. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. And thanks for reading.