#Southern right whale

[todropscience]

SOUTHERN RIGHT WHALE CALVES ARE LITTLE MILK THIEVES

Drone footages made during the nursing season, off Encounter Bay, South Australia have revealed an unknown behaviour in southern right whales (Eubalaena australis), with some calves involved in direct and intentional movement to steal milk from other lactating mothers, with the intention to drink some delicious extra milk.

This phenomenon called allosuckling has potential benefits for the calf as it may gain extra milk to help it grow in size and strength, but it may be disadvantageous to the non-biological mother as she needs to provide milk to her own offspring. According to lead researcher of the study, whales have a capital breeding strategy, where during the nursing season the mother does not feed and is not able to replenish her lost energy reserves.

Allosuckling, the suckling of milk from a non-biological mother, occurs in some species of mammals, whoever, this is the first time is reported in baleen whale calves.

Gif description: A calf performing allosuckling, and the non-biological mother showing an evasive reaction, Sprogis & Christiansen, 2024.

reference (Open Access): Sprogis & Christiansen, 2024. Allosuckling in southern right whale calves. Mamm Biol

[pangeen]

" Come Play With Me 🐋⁣" //© Maxi Jonas

Music: © Kenna Childs - Oceans

[have-you-seen-this-animal]

Southern right whale dolphins

Oh a very cool one, hadn't seen them before! Thank you!

Photos from Gerard Bodineau & Toby Dickson, respectively.

[inatungulates]

Southern right whale Eubalaena australis

With kelp gull Larus dominicanus

Observed by alexandreroux, CC BY-NC

[aifastic]

Llego tarde para el día 1 de todas las challenges jajaja pero hice la de Faunargtober!! :'D

[sharkboystims]

hi, I hope you're having a good day, can I request a southern right whale stimboard (they're my favourite cetacean), or a general cetacean stimboard if that is too specific, thank you so much!!

Southern right whale stimboard

Request are open

Pinterest—todropscience—biscutsarenice—helium-stims—bubbly-stims—noonlight-stims—gottastim—whatevenisthisbl0g

[redrcs]

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Female Southern Right Whale

Whale Watchers, Augusta

On my travels

[sitting-on-me-bum]

'El Blanco - The White One'

The image was taken on the last morning of a five-day trip to Peninsula Valdés in Argentina, in August 2022, under a special permit to enter the water with the Southern Right Whales that gather there between June and December each year.

by Don Silcock

Underwater Photographer of the Year 2023

[lost-lycaon]

Southern Right Whale - endangered, but can be found off the coasts of Argentina and South Africa. The town of Hermanus in South Africa has a whale crier, who announces in the town center when whales have been sighted.

[wormlizarding]

Planet Earth 3: Coasts

It should be no surprise that I'm a big fan of those BBC planet documentary series, Sir David Attenborough's narration, the cinematography, the score, the dramatized way of presenting these animals. And the first episode of their newest big production, the third season of Planet Earth, is exactly everything I love about those series.

It's been on my mind since I watched it so I thought I make a little review. It might seem weird to review a nature doc that's just about presenting natural phenomenon, but given how the series is produced, and that it's dramatized, there are purpose and messages behind what they're trying to present and why they're presenting it. So I think it's worth discussing a bit.

Spoiler for the first episode(if you count animals doing animal things as spoilers???)

In episode one we looked at eight different stories, and there's a theme of subverting expectation throughout the different stories, sea lions driving their predators away, the ethereal looking sea angels showing its monstrous mouth parts, lions hunting prey items you'd least expect them to, and a garter snake plunging into the temperate seas to hunt fish. I think it's great, since that's what a lot of people, myself included, want to see. Behaviors or animals we rarely see on television, and with that to increase awareness of those that are underrepresented. Speaking of awareness, the episode, just as other planet series, does a great job introducing the plight and perils the animals are facing in anthropogenic times(and making me sob about it like a wet floppy creature.)

There is one thing that I think this episode did better than the previous series(previous seasons of Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Frozen Planet, etc.) And that is giving us hope in ourselves. My favorite segment of the episode is actually the behind the scenes part, where they show the conservation work done on Raine Island and collaboration between the Wuthathi and Meriam people, the scientific community and the national park. This is what I've always wanted more from these documentaries, to demonstrate the importance of the connection between local communities and their land, and the success of their work. And seeing how the eighth episode seems to be dedicated to celebrating that, this hope will likely be present throughout the whole series.

8/10, made me cry about flamingos

Excited for ep 2 :D

[todropscience]

LONGEST MIGRATION OF A SOUTHERN RIGHT WHALES RECORDED

Why the the southern right whale cross the Atlantic ocean? because the krill.

Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) typically migrate between summer, high-latitude offshore foraging grounds and winter calving grounds located in coastal, temperate waters. But now, the satellite tracker for a southern right whale from South Africa, named 221423, which had been silent for months, misteriously appeared in south Argentina. The satellite tracker revealed the first scientifically documented case of a southern right whale crossing the Atlantic.

Whale 221423, swam to coastal Argentina, traveling a total of 15,288 kilometers. This distance far exceeded the findings of a previous tagging study that found the longest distance to be around 7,000 kilometers. Another whale traveled an unexpected 9,000 kilometers to the South Sandwich Islands, a feeding area typically frequented by western right whales. 

Premodern and modern whaling operations nearly extirpated the southern right whale, declining in nearly 100,000 individuals in the early 1800s to a few hundred individuals around the 1920s. However, thanks to current protection of the species, they have been recovering steadily in parts of their historical range, particularly in the coastal wintering and calving areas of Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

Photo above: Left showing 221423 taken in Walker Bay, South Africa, on October 13, 2021, immediately after tagged. Right: Photograph of 221423 taken in the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) on July 9, 2022.

Map indicating the movement patterns of four adult female tagged on the South African coast in October 2021.

Reference (Open Access): Vermeulen et al., 2023. Swimming across the pond: First documented transatlantic crossing of a southern right whale. Marine Mammal Science.

[videogamewhales]

[ID: An image of a Southern right whale from Petz Dolphinz Encounters. End ID.]

Southern right whale from Petz Dolphinz Encounters (2009)

[craftingcreatures]

I'm a little nervous about advertising this because I don't want to doxx myself, but you can get these stickers (available by donation) this weekend at Phoenix Fan Fusion in Phoenix, Arizona. Look for the table with the live reptiles - I won't be there, unfortunately, so I don't know exactly where it will be located.

Hopefully one day I'll be able to set up a dedicated online store with more designs, but that's way in the future if it happens at all. In the meantime, I hope you like these little guys!

[ayashootsbirbs]

I didn't have my camera on me, but we have a guest in the harbour.

[inatungulates]

Southern right whale Eubalaena australis

Observed by pablof, CC BY-NC

[skyradiant]

Seven Worlds, One Planet (2019).