All posts tagged: humpback

513 humpback whales gather at massive Caribbean breeding ground

513 humpback whales gather at massive Caribbean breeding ground

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) is widely seen as a model success story for wildlife conservation. Prior to the 1986 global ban on commercial whaling, marine biologists estimated only around 10,000 of the marine animals still existed around the world. Today, more than 135,000 of them swim in Earth’s oceans. This steadily increasing population is a testament to both human environmental stewardship as well as the humpback whale’s own adaptability and intelligence. But even scientists aboard the superyacht-turned-research vessel M/Y Solace were surprised at the sheer number of whales during a recent excursion in the Caribbean. Speaking with Popular Science, the EYOS Expeditions team confirmed that Navidad Bank, a shallow underwater coral formation around 62 miles off the coast of the Dominican Republic, is one of the world’s most densely populated humpback whale breeding grounds. EYOS Expeditions Discovers Humpback Whale Breeding Ground Near Dominican Republic’s Navidad Bank “This is an extraordinary testament to the power of long-term marine conservation,” …

4 surprisingly easy ways to tackle office humpback – before your poor posture is ‘hard to reverse’

4 surprisingly easy ways to tackle office humpback – before your poor posture is ‘hard to reverse’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Sitting at your desk for as many as 40 hours a week is an almost unavoidable part of many office jobs, but if you’re finding that slouching or slumping is having an impact on your posture, it’s not too late to do something about it. Making sure your workstation is set up correctly, with your chair and screen at the right height for you, is an important part of supporting good workplace posture. And according to Anouska Shenn, founder of The Office Yoga Company, there are some other mobility exercises that can be performed regularly to overcome pain, discomfort and poor posture in the workplace. What causes the office humpback? Firstly, what causes that unsightly office humpback you may have observed, or noticed in yourself? “The short answer is – posture. When we sit or stand upright, and our joints are stacked, we’re at our most stable and use the least amount of muscular effort. Our spine will be in its default ‘S’ shape, which absorbs forces much like a spring does,” Anouska explains. “When …

The oldest-known humpback whale recording was hiding in an archive

The oldest-known humpback whale recording was hiding in an archive

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. In 1970, a single record would change history. It wasn’t the latest album from The Who or Rolling Stones, but the musical stylings of a pod of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). Songs of the Humpback Whale would go multi-platinum, whale songs were included on the Voyager Golden Record sent into space, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed by 1972. However, listening in on the humpback whale goes back even further than the far out days of the 1970s. While digitizing archives, a group of researchers and archivists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts have now identified what may be the earliest preserved recording of a whale. The humpback song was captured on March 7, 1949, in the warm Atlantic waters near Bermuda. However, the team did not exactly know what they were hearing and the recording was never properly archived. “Preserving data when it is created is an investment in the future of science,” Ashley …

Bubble feeding trick spreads through humpback whale social groups

Bubble feeding trick spreads through humpback whale social groups

Published by skeptic

Humpback whales work together to trap fish by surrounding them with bubbles Jenn Dickie/North Coast Cetatean society An innovative feeding behaviour has spread rapidly through humpback whales in the fjords of western Canada, in a clear example of how cultural knowledge can help animal populations to survive. Bubble-net feeding is a group hunting technique in which whales blow bubbles to corral fish, then surge upwards together to gulp them down. “It’s an activity that’s done cooperatively, given the level of coordination and division of labour involved,” says Ellen Garland at the University of St Andrews, UK. The behaviour has been documented for decades among humpbacks (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Alaskan waters, and researchers have started seeing it recently in the northeastern Pacific population off Canada. But it is tricky for researchers to establish whether complex behaviours like this are transmitted through social learning — rather than being independently discovered by multiple individuals. To tease apart the process, Éadin O’Mahony at the University of St Andrews and her colleagues analysed field observation data from 2004 to 2023, …