How Do Whales Breastfeed Underwater? New Technology Reveals the Answer
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- Опубліковано 30 чер 2024
- #whales #whale #kpassionate
I'm a marine biologist with over a decade of experience working with marine mammals like sea otters, sea lions, and of course, whales and dolphins. In this video, I react to UNBELIEVABLE and extremely RARE footage of humpback whales nursing underwater.
00:00 - Tagging Humpback Whales
02:29 - Whales Breastfeeding Video
03:38 - How Do Whales Breastfeed Underwater?
04:51 - How Much Milk Do Whale Calves Drink?
05:29 - Humpback Whale Migration
06:15 - Protecting Humpback Whales
07:20 - Bond Between Whale Calf and Mom
07:37 - Kpassionate
The original video, taken at the Maui breeding grounds, was part of a scientific study into the amazing bond between humpback whale moms and calves. For the first time ever, marine biologists were able to record the nursing behavior of whales from the calves perspective thanks to cutting edge technology.
It was incredibly humbling to realize that I played a small role in the development of these the specialized tags used to capture this never before seen footage. A few years ago, the developers of these tags asked a team of marine mammal trainers and biologists (myself included) to participate in testing the suction cups. The scientists wanted these tags to meet very specific requirements. Specifically, the tags needed to be non-invasive, so that the marine mammals would not be harmed. The researchers also wanted the tags to stay attached to the whales long enough to record usable data but still easily shaken off from natural behaviors of a humpback whale. So they had my team attach these tags to dolphins who were then asked to perform breaches and other natural behaviors. This allowed the developers to design the perfect tag that was then used in this ground breaking research.
Whales, dolphins, and porpoises have unique challenges as marine mammals who spend their entire lives underwater. For example, how do whales nurse underwater? Can whales drink sea water? No, just like humans, whales cannot drink sea water without damaging their bodies. So, they have a unique adaptation that makes it possible for the whale calves to nurse underwater. Their tongues have frills! These frilled tongues allow the young whales to create a watertight funnel so they can nurse underwater without drinking any of the harmful salt water.
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Original Video
• Tagging expedition: re...
Cited Source
peerj.com/articles/8538/
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Altered by DoubleAgent XV
That is like, so totally cool. I have really enjoyed all of the footage coming out from the drones and new cameras. There has been so much discovered in the last few years. Thanks KP and Double. You know my favorite ocean mama is an otter, but the whales are hard working mamas too. It takes a lot of food and energy to produce 150 gallons of milk a day.
DUDE being a part of the construction of those trackers is SO FRIGGIN COOL! Really awesome to see how your work and the work of other marine biologist help out in the field. 10/10.
Beautiful footage and great explanations thank KP 😍❤️
Glad you enjoyed it!
Amazing KP, thank you for sharing! 💕
Thanks for watching!
That was absolutely amazing, showing the footage from that suction cam. got to admit this made me real emotional, i do love it when we see new, never before seen behaviours. thanks for walking us through this :)
Thanks for watching! I loved seeing it too.
thanks for the video! it's cool to see how excited you are!
Stuff like this blows me away. It's so rewarding to see the work we do at zoos and aquariums help conservation and research efforts.
Wow, so great that they are able to develop these things to help learn and understand more about our underwater friends
Great video. Happy mother's day to all the moms out there
I'm relieved to know that retrieve the tags
It is really interesting to understand how research with animals in human care and research into wild animals impact on how we can best protect them.
Sea otter moms!
❤️❤️❤️
❤️🦦❤️
❤️❤️❤️
The best moms!
I am subscribe you are channel you have a great work 😍👍👍👌
Thank you so much!
@@KPassionate thank you so much😍😍
My personal favorite ocean moms are giant pacific octopus moms. Once mom finds a suitable place to lay her spawn she will stay there, never leaving to hunt or eat for the entire 6 month period to protect, groom, and gently blow water over her 120,000-400,000 spawn. Shortly after they hatch and drift into the sea, she dies of starvation, having given her life so theirs can start.
I love octopuses! Such cool animals.
"Pretty cool, eh?" 😁 Your Canada is showing, eh? 😉
Hahaha I didn’t even notice!
@@KPassionate :)
I read that the mother expresses (flows) the super-rich milk into the baby's mouth to keep the milk going in and not sea water. Their fat content is so rich, that if a quantity of milk gets out during nursing, they become like globular spheres of rich milk in a round bubble floating away.
Octomoms are pretty great
Tell more please
@@mariag.8242 female octopuses lay their eggs, a lot of the time in a "nursery" where other females are doing the same thing, and hunch over them and pass water them to give them a supply of oxygenated water. THey'll do this for months not hunting or eating and basically give their life to care for their eggs.
Awesome video footage. Glad they've found a non-invasive way to film these animals. I have a question for you. Recently I saw another video about the famous loch ness monster photo from the 1930's explaining that it might actually be a whale penis. There was a side by side photo with an actual whale penis (taken recently) poking out of the water and it certainly looked the same. What are your thoughts?
Sorry for the late response. I saw the video you're referencing. While the famous Loch Ness Monster photo does resemble the male parts of a whale... the Loch Ness Monster is just as unlikely to be a whale as it is a monster. Loch Ness is fresh water. While there are 4 species of fresh water dolphins, they still need to come up for air, making sightings much more likely and common. In fact, the stepson of the photographer who snapped that iconic photo eventually admitted that he made the "monster" out of a toy submarine. Source: www.unmuseum.org/nesshoax.htm
OMG 😱 very nice video 👌👌💕💕💝💥💥
Thank you!
Awesome sauce! Imma need that necklace.
It’s an actual replica of a baby beluga and baby false killer that I worked with!
is whale milk not supposed to be so fatty that it comes out like a form of cottage cheese?
No. It’s still a liquid. Very high in fat though
if you have thalassophobia and you want to be a marine bioligist, do you have too do it anyway?....
There are lots of jobs in the marine biology field that don’t involve deep water. I almost never work around deep water!
It is interesting to know... however not necessary to know.
We have managed to exist on this planet to this point without knowing how the whales do this.
This knowledge does not justify keeping marine mammals in captivity. Imprisoning an animal in order to do research is not ok. I am sure that I will get vitriolic replies. Try asking the captive animals what they think about it. Oh yeah, they can't speak human. Even if they could do so, people wouldn't listen.
Three points. First, it is absolutely vital to know. This data is already allowing us to craft stricter protections for these animals. Protections that we cannot enact without the data. Just look at what happened when Maine Lobster was put on the seafood redlist in order to protect the critically endangered right whales. There was significant blowback because the data was incomplete and many of these seafood watch lists nearly lost their government funding.
[1] sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/mar20/new-research-humpback-whale-nursing-behavior.html
Second. Recent studies have found that marine mammals in zoos and aquariums (including dolphins) live longer, happier, and healthier lives under human care than their wild counterparts. This is thanks to improvements in animal husbandry and healthcare as well as the fact that these animals are free from predators and other stressors like lack of food.
[2] species360.org/2023/10/marine-mammal-longevity-study-reveals-remarkable-advances-in-animal-welfare/
And last, all of the dolphins who were part of this study in human care were rescued animals who were caught in bycatch. They all sustained injuries from the fishing nets that would have prevented them from being able to catch food in the wild so they were deemed non-releasable. Their alternative was euthanasia.