#Marine Mammals

[snototter]

Hawaiian monk seals (Neomonachus schauinslandi) play in the shallows in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, Hawai'i

by NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Learning anything about marine mammal training will make you re-evaluate so much of your relationship with your own pets. There is so much force involved in the way we handle domestic animals. Most of it isn’t even intentional, it just stems from impatience. I’m guilty of it myself!

But with the exception of certain veterinary settings where the animal’s health is the immediate priority, why is it so important to us that animals do exactly what we want exactly when we want it? Why do we have to invent all these tools and contraptions to force them to behave?

When a whale swam away from a session, that was that. The trainer just waited for them to decide to come back. If they flat out refused to participate in behaviors, they still got their allotment of fish. Nothing bad happened. Not even when 20-30 people were assembled for a procedure, and the whale chose not to enter the medical pool. No big deal. Their choice and comfort were prioritized over human convenience.

It’s almost shocking to return to domestic animal medicine afterwards and watch owners use shock collars and chokers and whips to control their animals. It’s no wonder that positive reinforcement was pioneered by marine mammal trainers. When you literally can’t force an animal to do what you want, it changes your entire perspective.

I want to see that mindset extended to our domestic animals.

[arthistoryanimalia]

Whale Effigy 🐳 Chumash (California, West Coast), c.1200-1600 Steatite, shell inlay, 7.1 x 9.5 cm Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 1950.51.Ab.9

[claypigeonpottery]

sold

[seaps]

it looks like mochimochi is making a heart with her flippers 🥰🩷

[feather-bone]

[ID: A digital drawing of a gray spotted seal facing to the left with its tongue out. The background is a wavy teal with small black fish. End.]

#00219

HARBOR SEAL

Phoca vitulina

CLASS MAMMALIA

CLADE PINNIPEDIA

Harbor seal spot patterns are unique, and can appear either dark-on-light or light-on-dark. Seal pups are able to swim and dive just hours after birth. Adults can grow up to 370lbs.

[finnautica]

This month's exclusive stickers for my sticker club... Have I told you guys that I really like seals?

[theyshapedlikefriends]

Sunlemon - LOST ANIMALS

[seasideseals]

silly hiyori ! ~

[creds to aguhiyori]

[a-solitary-sea-rover-backup]

The popularity of space whale art can be traced to the 1960s and 1970s. A few different cultural currents from that period coalesced into the ‘space whale’ motif. In brief, they are environmentalism, public awareness of scientific advances in understanding cetacean intelligence and behaviour, psychedelic drug culture, and space exploration.

[respect-the-locals]

🐋Daily Cetacean Fact:🐋

Pygmy Sperm Whale: the whales only come to the water’s surface when the sea and weather conditions are very calm. As a result, scientists rarely see pygmy sperm whales at sea. This makes it difficult to estimate their minimum population size or current population trends. They grow to be only 12ft long and can weigh between 700 and 1,000lbs.

[snototter]

An orca (Orcinus orca) breaches off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, USA

by Guy Schmickle

[alphynix]

Albireonids were an early branch of the delphinoid whales, with their closest living relatives being modern oceanic dolphins, narwhals and belugas, and porpoises. Known from temperate latitudes of the North Pacific Ocean between the late Miocene and the late Pliocene, about 9-2.5 million years ago, their fossil remains are very rare in coastal deposits and they seem to have primarily been offshore open ocean animals.

Albireo whistleri is the best known member of this family, represented by a near-complete skeleton from what is now Isla de Cedros in Baja California, Mexico, dating to the late Miocene between about 8 and 6 million years ago. It was a rather small dolphin, around 2.5m long (~8'2"), with a stocky body, fairly broad flippers, and skull anatomy with some convergent similarities with the modern Dall's porpoise.

Interestingly these dolphins also seem to have frequently had pathological neck vertebrae, with both Albireo whisteri and the younger species Albireo savagei from California, USA, showing unusually asymmetrical atlas bones – but on opposite sides to each other. This might be due to illness or injury earlier in life, or possibly be evidence of some sort of "handedness" with individuals preferring to perform some actions more with one side of their body than the other.

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

"Albireonidae." Paleobiology Database, https://paleobiodb.org/classic/checkTaxonInfo?taxon_no=42961

Barnes, Lawrence G. Fossil odontocetes (Mammalia: Cetacea) from the Almejas Formation, Isla Cedros, Mexico. University of California, Museum of Paleontology, 1984. https://books.google.com/books?id=rxyydMGWGqgC

Barnes, Lawrence G. "Miocene and Pliocene Albireonidae (Cetacea, Odontoceti), rare and unusual fossil dolphins from the eastern North Pacific Ocean." Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Science Series 41 (2008): 99-152. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Xiaoming-Wang-43/publication/252086599_Geology_and_Vertebrate_Paleontology_of_Western_and_Southern_North_America/links/5625900908ae4d9e5c4bb863/Geology-and-Vertebrate-Paleontology-of-Western-and-Southern-North-America.pdf#page=105

Gillet, Amandine, Bruno Frédérich, and Eric Parmentier. "Divergent evolutionary morphology of the axial skeleton as a potential key innovation in modern cetaceans." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 286.1916 (2019): 20191771. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1771

Thomas, Howell W., et al. "Examples of paleopathologies in some fossil Cetacea from the North Pacific realm." Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Science Series 41 (2008): 153-179. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Xiaoming-Wang-43/publication/252086599_Geology_and_Vertebrate_Paleontology_of_Western_and_Southern_North_America/links/5625900908ae4d9e5c4bb863/Geology-and-Vertebrate-Paleontology-of-Western-and-Southern-North-America.pdf#page=159

[arthistoryanimalia]

Levi Qumaluk (Inuit; Nunavik, 1919-1997) Untitled (Walrus), 1952 Steatite, ivory, 9.4 x 18.7 x 19.7 cm Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 1953.Aa.1

[littlealienproducts]

Custom Whale Night Light by Ianare