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A 1.4-million-year-old fossil relative of killer whales had teeth that suggest it ate small fish rather than large marine mammals Life 7 March 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre Artistic reconstruction of Rododelphis stamatiadisi Rossella Faleni A 1.4-million-year-old ancestor of orcas and false killer whales seems to have dined on small fish – which suggests its descendants … Read more
Humpback whales can swim as far as 3,700 miles (5,955 kilometers) for the chance to mate, per a new study. Scientists analyzed a database of over 450,000 pictures of whales in the wild to track the animals. They found that some would swim thousands of miles during the mating season. Two distinctive males, which could be … Read more
Crowdsourced photographs reveal that some humpback whales travel between Mexico and Hawaii in one breeding season Life 16 February 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre A humpback whale breaching NMFS Permit 19225, Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures Humpback whales may be far more mobile during their breeding season than previously thought, with some travelling up to 6000 kilometres in … Read more
For the first time, a pack of orcas – also known as killer whales – have been observed hunting and killing blue whales, the largest animal on the planet. According to a report published in Marine Mammal Science, the scientific community has long debated if orcas can hunt the massive blue whales. But this question … Read more
In a strange encounter off the coast of western Australia, a pod of orcas seems to free a humpback whale from a rope entangling its tail. But were they really trying to rescue it? It isn’t clear whether the orcas (Orcinus orca) were trying to manipulate the rope or why they approached the humpback in the … Read more
Baleen whales are heavy drinkers. In just ten seconds, these giant mammals can down over five hundred bathtubs of ocean water, filtering out roughly 10 kilograms of krill in a single swig. All they have to do is open their mouths and lunge forward at roughly 10 kilometers an hour (6 miles per hour). The … Read more
A sea monster that lived during the early dinosaur age is so unexpectedly colossal, it reveals that its kind grew to gigantic sizes extremely quickly, evolutionarily speaking at least. The discovery suggests that such ichthyosaurs – a group of fish-shaped marine reptiles that inhabited the dinosaur-era seas – grew to enormous sizes in a span of only 2.5 … Read more
A newly discovered fossil shows that within just 3 million years of their first appearance on Earth, ichthyosaurs had evolved into 17-metre-long giants Life 23 December 2021 By Riley Black An artist’s impression of Cymbospondylus youngorum Stephanie Abramowicz Fossil remains of one of the ocean’s earliest giants have been unearthed in Nevada. Named Cymbospondylus youngorum, … Read more