Whee! New Footage of Rare Whales (and Their Babies)

Last fall, New England Aquarium biologist Salvatore Cerchio shared some incredible observations he and his colleagues had made off the coast of Madagascar. They'd found a population of Omura's whales. Previously, no scientists had ever seen these animals alive—and they only knew of the whales living far away, in the western Pacific. By following the whales around the Indian Ocean, the researchers gleaned tidbits of new information. They observed the whales' asymmetrical coloring, mostly gray with a white patch on the right side of the jaw. They watched the whales feed by lunging through the sea with their mouths wide open to filter out tiny animals. And they saw that Omura's whales tend to hang out alone, though they may be listening to each other's distinctive songs underwater. Now, Cerchio has published new video footage of the Madagascar population. An older video showed a close-up shot of one whale gliding ...