• Meet a one-eyed, six-legged, flying whale chaser

    Wayne Perryman, NOAA

    A NOAA hexacopter out for a spin. Scientists use the device to track marine life.

    By Becky Oskin, OurAmazingPlanet

    Low, slow and loud — counting marine life by plane has some drawbacks. Though scientists can cover wide swaths of ocean, engine noise may disturb animals and the surveys always present some risk to pilots and crew.

    So some biologists are turning to less obtrusive unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to spot species including whales, dolphins, sea lions and penguins. From small helicopters to planes with a 10-foot (3 meters) wingspan, the battery-powered craft could become a popular new tool.

    "What makes these things so effective is they capture a tremendous amount of information," said NOAA marine biologist Wayne Perryman, based at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif.

    For years, Perryman has experimented with military reconnaissance techniques to track marine life. He collaborates with former Navy officer Don LeRoi of Aerial Imaging Solutions in Connecticut.

    Their latest device is a hexacopter. With six quiet engines, internal gyroscopes, an accelerometer and a GPS, the mechanical bird has great maneuverability, Perryman said. For the past two years, Perryman has snapped shots of penguin and seal colonies in Antarctica with the hexacopter. Future trips include a jaunt to Alaska to survey stellar sea lions.

    "When you get into aggregations of thousands of animals, humans are lousy at determining how many animals there are," Perryman told OurAmazingPlanet. "With photography, you can go back in time and see something you maybe wouldn't have noticed," he adds.

    Sperm whale spotting
    In February and March, Perryman and LeRoi helped an international science team track sperm whales near New Zealand by capturing whale photos with the copter. The scientists attached tracking tags to the whales, and knowing their size and shape from the photos improves understanding of how the whales dive underwater, Perryman said. It was the first ship-based test for the 'copter, named Archie by the scientists onboard.

    There were lessons learned. Even with a gyroscope-stabilized platform brought on ship to calibrate the hexacopter's stabilizing systems, Archie ended up in the ocean on one flight. "We picked it up and rinsed it off with fresh water, and within a week, we were flying again," Perryman said.

    For their ease-of-use and cool aerial photos and videos, hexacopters are also popular with hobbyists, who can build a bird with off-the-shelf parts for less than $1,000.

    Perryman said it would cost $60,000 to design a hexacopter for marine research, and he hopes to find funding for a pilot trainer.

    "We need to build a tough little aircraft that has all the same components as our sampling bird, but one you can crash and knock it into things and fly into trees and it keeps on ticking," he said.

    Abandon ships?
    Researchers at Murdoch University in Australia are also testing a small fixed-wing plane to survey and count marine life, including dugongs, an animal similar to manatees, and humpback whales. [ Whales: Giants of the Deep ]

    Perryman sees potential for using aerial devices to place tracking tags on animals, collect skin specimens and sample breath, which contains information about an animal's health. Currently, scientists invest many hours following whales and other species to collect this information and place tags, typically in small rubber boats.

    The photographic detail achievable with these vehicles could also help differentiate between species, Perryman said.

    "In the Antarctic, there may be four undescribed species of killer whales. If you're going to ask questions about size and shape and growth, you have to have a way of collecting very accurate information without handling the animals, and that's what this can do," Perryman said.

    Email Becky Oskinor follow her@beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet,Facebook orGoogle +.Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

  • Exhibit shows how whales' ancestors left land behind

    Brandon Cole

    The male sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) is the largest living toothed predator on Earth. Its submarine-like shape is perfectly adapted for deep diving — it can swim down to at least 6,500 feet to feed.

    Chris Bangs / AP file

    A sperm whale calf swims next to its mother and a pod of sperm whales. The male sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) is the largest living toothed predator on Earth. Its submarine-like shape is perfectly adapted for deep diving — it can swim down to at least 6,500 feet to feed..

    By Wynne Parry
    LiveScience

    NEW YORK — By moving into the water full-time, the ancestors of whales paved the way for their descendants to become behemoths, largely free from gravity's constraints. Today, the blue whale is the largest animal ever to live.

    But even before the move, this lineage was setting size records. One ancient cousin to modern whales and hippos, called Andrewsarchus mongoliensis, ranks as the largest mammal known to have stalked the land as a predator. A skull from this creature — the only fossil found so far from this beast — greets visitors on their way into a new exhibit on whales here at the American Museum of Natural History.

    "It's odd to have a big predator in this hoofed plant-eating mammal group," said John Flynn, co-curator of the exhibit, referring to the group to which whales and the now-extinct Andrewsarchus belonged. "But if you think about it, some of the other relatives like pigs and peccaries are pretty ferocious and will eat just about anything."

    In an artist's rendering, the 45-million-year-old Andrewsarchus has a profile not unlike a giant feral pig with a more streamlined snout. This 6-foot-tall (1.8 meters) creature lived solely on land, but its relatives began taking to the water and eventually left land completely. [Whale Gallery: Giants of the Deep]

    The "first whale," a creature whose lifestyle (living on land but eating fish from the nearby sea) represented the early stage of this transition into the water, was a wolf-size fish eater that lived about 50 million years ago on the edges of the ancient Tethys Sea, according to the exhibit. Whereas this creature had a body clearly adapted for land, its relatives began acquiring features better suited to life in the water, such as webbed feet and a more streamlined, hairless shape.

    The basilosaurids, which lived about 34 million to 40 million years ago, had a more familiar shape than their ancestors. Basilosaurids had nostrils situated toward the top of their heads, an ear structure that suggested they could hear well underwater, and forelimbs that took the shape of paddlelike flippers.

    Their hips and legs were on the way out. A basilosaurid on display, Dorudon atrox, displays a tiny pelvis and legs detached from its spinal column.  [Top 10 Useless Limbs]

    These leftovers from land are still visible in some modern whales. For instance, the skeleton of a pygmy right whale hanging from the ceiling displayed two tiny bones, the remnant of the pelvis, Flynn pointed out. 

    "Imagine your hip bones just started to float off your body — that is what that is," he said.

    Nowadays, there are two varieties of whale. These are the baleen whales, such as the blue whale, which use plates of baleen, made from fingernail-like material, to filter food from the water, and toothed whales, such as dolphins, killer whales and narwhals, which kept their teeth. (In the case of narwhals, one tooth becomes a modified tusk.)

    Around 30 million years ago, these lineages split and evolved into the more than 80 species living today.

    The exhibit also explores whale biology, and includes a life-size replica of a blue whale heart. Whales' relationships with humans are also a focus. The exhibit addresses the whaling industry, modern dangers, such as ship collisions, as well as coastal peoples' interactions with them.

    Formally known as "Whales: Giants of the Deep," this exhibition traveled to New York from New Zealand, where it was developed by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. (It was modified by the American Museum of Natural History.) In traditional Maori culture, whales were the source of important resources, such as oil, protein, bones and teeth, and the inspiration for stories of whale riders, ancestors transported to New Zealand atop a whale.

    A preview of the exhibit opened with a Maori blessing intended to invoke the gods, the spirits of ancestors and spirits of the whales on display.

    The exhibitis on display until Jan. 5, 2014.

    Follow us @livescience, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Scientists hope to tap into trove of recorded whale songs

    Ari Friedlaender

    Blue whales do a graceful turn before lunging at their prey from below, a new study finds.

    By Becky Oskin
    LiveScience

    A rich but untapped trove of whale calls hides in decades of recordings collected by geologists surveying the ocean floor.

    The recordings come from seismic studies that shoot powerful air guns underwater to jiggle the Earth and learn more about its makeup. Sensors listen to acoustic waves in the water before, during and after the shots, capturing the reflections from the ground. But they can also pick up songs from any passing marine life that chats on the same frequency — fin whales and blue whales, in this case.

    Extracting those squeals, squeaks and moans from the recordings could greatly improve scientist's understanding of the air gun's effects on whales. The noise could potentially confuse or even harm marine life, according to researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Mass. The calls may reveal how whale behavior changes in response to the sudden, sharp bursts in many different settings.

    "We're really excited about the potential for it," said Laela Sayigh, a WHOI marine biologist. "There is a treasure trove of data."

    Funding needed
    The goal: Create a computer algorithm to extract the whale calls from data collected during a 2002 research cruise in Mexico's Gulf of California. The gulf is a birthing ground for blue whales, and teems with marine life. Researchers will analyze whale behavior before, during and after the air gun blasts.

    The cruise included onboard observers to track the effects of air guns on marine life, so scientists could potentially link calls to individual animals by matching the calls with those observations.

    "We have a huge amount of data that can say, 'Did they change their behavior? Did they stop feeding? Did they stop talking? Did they talk louder?' And that's what we want to know," said WHOI seismologist Dan Lizarralde.

    For now, the project is only an idea, because Sayigh and Lizarralde have no money for the research. Woods Hole turned the researchers down for an internal grant. This month they will apply for a grant from the Navy, which uses sonar and underwater explosions during training, and funds research exploring the effects of ocean noise on marine life.

    Dan Lizarralde / WHOI

    Whale calls recorded during a seismic survey in the Gulf of California.
    Top: This spectrogram of ocean sound was recorded by a hydrophone during an air gun seismic experiment in the Gulf of California in 2002. Color indicates the loudness of the sounds, with yellow the loudest. Dark blue represents when the air guns were not being fired. The bright yellow signals ranging from about 17 to 30 Hertz are calls from fin whales, according to WHOI researchers.
    Middle: A 5-hour span from the first panel shows more detail in the sounds. The brief blank periods between are short silences between intense whale call activity.
    Bottom: A 5-minute span from the second panel show the presence of at least two fin whales, one much close to the hydrophone than the other.

    Ocean noise and marine life
    Parking hydrophones underwater to listen to whales is not new, but looking for the calls in seismic survey data is. As long as whales are calling, this precise method of monitoring them could track individuals and groups of whales through the water, showing researchers how the whales react to the blasts, Sayigh said.

    Whale researchers have tracked the animals with underwater devices for decades, said Susan Parks, a bioacoustics expert at Pennsylvania State University who studies right whales with underwater recordings. "This is proven technology," she said. "I think it's an interesting idea, and it's really quite promising," she said. [Video: Listen to whale calls]

    Dorian Houser, director of bioacoustical research for the National Marine Mammals Foundation, said Sayigh's and Lizarralde' project has potential. "We are really in the dark in a lot of the response of the animals to [ocean noise]," Houser told OurAmazingPlanet. "There's a big push to try and understand these exact questions: How does a whale's behavior change when they are exposed to these exact sounds, and what is the consequence?"

    Sayigh thinks the project may also answer questions about the beaching of two Cuvier's beaked whales. Those whales came ashore while the 2002 research cruise that collected this data was in the gulf, and the cruise was accused of playing a role in the deaths. "They know the exact amplitude of all their shots, and could extrapolate the likely location for the whales," Sayigh said.

    If Sayigh and Lizarralde succeed in getting funding, there's a huge archive of seismic data waiting for future studies. Since 1999, all recordings from research cruises like Lizarralde's, funded by the National Science Foundation, go into an open-access archive called IRIS, the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology.

    "We'll keep trying," Lizarralde said. "I really want to see what the behavior is associated with these air guns.

    "I've convinced myself from observations that the whales are completely uninterested, that it's probably annoying but not damaging, but I'd like to know that better," he said.

    Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google +. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Baleen forms tangled net to let whales trap their dinners

    Alexander Werth

    A new study shows that the baleen of bowhead whales and humpback whales is not the passive structure it was thought to be, but forms a tangled mesh in water.

    By Tanya Lewis
    LiveScience

    Humpback and bowhead whales create their own food nets from specialized bristles in their mouths to more efficiently nab fishy morsels, a new study of baleen whales suggests.

    When these whales feed, some open their jaws wide to gulp mouthfuls of seawater, whereas others swim with half-open mouths (called ramming or skim-feeding). Both rely on baleen, a system of hairy bristles that line their mouths and trap food. The new study, published Wednesday in The Journal of Experimental Biology, shows that the baleen of bowhead whales and humpback whales is not the passive structure it was thought to be, but forms a tangled mesh in water that streams through it as the animals swim.

    And how the baleen gets morphed is different depending on the specific whale's feeding style, the study found.

    "Everyone assumed baleen works like a sieve," study author Alexander Werth, a biologist at Hampden-Sydney College, Va., told LiveScience. But as soon as he put pieces of baleen in a flow tank, "it became immediately apparent that it was a dynamic tissue rather than a static one."

    Baleen is made up of keratin, the protein found in hair and fingernails, which forms large plates that enclose a fibrous inner core. Whales typically have about 300 plate structures on either side of their mouths, perpendicular to the direction that water flows. The whales' tongues wear away the inner edges of the plates to create a fringe that traps krill and other tasty morsels.

    Baleen biomechanics
    Werth wanted to compare the biomechanics of the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) with that of the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae). He placed pieces of baleen from these whales in a giant tank, and pumped water and small latex beads (stand-ins for the food morsels they filter from water) through them, observing this with an underwater camera. [See Video of Baleen in Motion]

    Werth tested small sections of each kind of baleen at water speeds between 2 and 55 inches per second (5 and 140 centimeters per second), which is comparable to whale swimming speeds. Werth also varied the angle of the baleen between parallel and perpendicular to the flow. He observed how many beads the baleen bristles trapped for at least 2 seconds.

    The single baleen plates trapped the most beads at the lowest water speeds, the results showed. As the water speed increased, the bristles streamed out — like hair blowing in a strong wind — creating gaps where particles could slip through.

    But baleen isn't found in single plates in a whale's mouth, it's found in rows, so Werth tested a small rack of six baleen plates. Now the bristles formed a tangled net in the flowing water, with most beads being trapped at about 28 to 31 inches/s (70 to 80 cm/s) — exactly the speed bowhead whales swim when they're "ram" feeding.

    "The first thing I saw was the size of that net depends on how fast the waters are flowing through it and in what direction," Werth said. "The fringes from adjacent plates would tangle up and make a really dense knot."

    Humpback whale baleen was shorter and coarser than bowhead baleen, and captured fewer beads.

    Feeding styles
    The findings reveal how the baleen of bowhead whales and humpbacks differs biomechanically. Those differences explain the specialized feeding styles of the two types of whales: Bowheads feed by continuous ram feeding at slower speeds, whereas humpbacks feed in intermittent gulps at higher speeds.

    The baleen of humpback whales performed best at the same speed as that of bowheads, despite the fact that humpbacks typically swim faster than bowheads when feeding.

    "This is a fascinating study," marine ecologist Ari Friedlaender of Duke University, who was not involved in the study, told LiveScience in an email, adding he was surprised  that the bowhead whale baleen functioned better at higher flow speeds than the humpback whale baleen.

    "We think of (bowhead) whales generally as slow-feeding animals that are basically mowing the lawn and that humpback whales are more energetic and feed faster," Friedlaender said, but it appears humpbacks may actually be moving at a similar speed while feeding.

    Werth also hopes to explore how pollutants affect the whales' baleen. "I'm really worried about what would happen if the filter gets clogged with oil or debris," he said.

    Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter @tanyalewis314. Follow us @livescience, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • WhaleWatch: New program could help protect whales

    Ari Friedlaender

    A blue whale surfacing.

    By Douglas Main, OurAmazingPlanet

    Throughout the year, the waters off the U.S. West Coast host a diverse group of whales. But the area is also home to busy shipping lanes and fishing activity, putting whales at risk for ship strikes and entanglement in fishing nets.

    A new program is being developed by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Oregon State University and the University of Maryland to help prevent these accidents. Called WhaleWatch, it's being designed to give ship captains a better idea of where whales are most likely to congregate. It could also help NOAA adjust shipping lanes if necessary, and take other measures needed to prevent unnecessary whale deaths, said Daniel Palacios, a researcher with NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

    WhaleWatch, which is due to be finished in about 1.5 years, is being developed using data from tags placed on as many as 150 whales over the last 20 years, Palacios told OurAmazingPlanet. This information has allowed researchers to determine a set of physical measurements — such as water depth, temperature and plankton productivity — where whales are usually found. Much of it depends on how these conditions affect the location and abundance of krill, a small shrimp-like animal that is a favorite food of these great whales, he said.

    The program will take these variables, which can be measured by satellites, and issue a periodic online map showing where certain whales are most likely to be found, Palacios said.

    The program is based upon TurtleWatch, a product developed by NOAA researchers that's used by longline fishermen in Hawaii, and which has helped reduce the number of entanglements of loggerhead sea turtles there, Palacios said. TurtleWatch similarly produces maps of where the endangered turtles are most likely to be found, namely in warm waters where wind currents converge, said Evan Howell, TurtleWatch developer and a researcher at NOAA's Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center in Honolulu.

    The data for WhaleWatch comes from tags placed on blue, fin, gray and humpback whales from off the U.S. West Coast, Palacios said. This tagging work was led by Bruce Mate, a researcher at Oregon State University and Palacios' collaborator, Palacios said.

    Reach Douglas Main at dmain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @Douglas_Main. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter  @OAPlanet. We're also on  Facebook  and Google+.

  • Ancient whale fossils unearthed on a road less traveled

    Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center

    Teeth from one of the whale fossils discovered during construction of a roadway in California.

    By Douglas Main
    LiveScience

    BOSTON — Fossils uncovered during construction of a roadway in Southern California have revealed four new species of ancient whales, according to research presented here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on Sunday.

    One of the species, dubbed "Willy," is much larger than the others and may have eaten sharks, said Meredith Rivin, a paleontologist at the Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center in Fullerton, Calif., and part of the team that studied the fossils.

    The fossils were excavated a decade ago, but are only now giving up their secrets, in part because it takes so long to separate the fossils from the rocks, Rivin said. "For the last 10 years… I've been trying to 'free Willy,'" Rivin said.

    Whale teeth
    These animals were toothed, baleen whales, and swam the oceans from about 17 million to 19 million years ago, Rivin said. That's quite a surprise, since this group was thought to have gone extinct about 5 million years earlier, she said.

    Most of the world's largest whales belong to a suborder called Mysticeti, which all use a structure called baleen to filter food from the oceans. Their earliest ancestors, however, had teeth. Although these four species of whale don't appear to be direct relatives of modern baleen whales, they may represent transitional forms between the earlier toothed whales and toothless baleen whales, Rivin said. Modern baleen whales like fin whales have teeth only as embryos; the teeth are reabsorbed long before birth, she added.

    All modern whales evolved from a single type of land mammal about 55 million years ago, Rivin said. These animals were quite small, about the size of a modern golden retriever, she noted.  

    It isn't well understood exactly how whales became so gigantic, although it's at least partially related to the development of baleen and a behavior called "lunge feeding," wherein whales swallow enormous amounts of water and filter out tiny animals like krill, said Nicholas Pyenson, a researcher at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in Rivin's research. [See a Blue Whale Dive for Krill]

    3-D fossil models
    Pyenson described Rivin's find as "exciting" and said that he's eager to see the published details of the fossils, which are due in the near future, Rivin said.

    Pyenson also happened upon whale fossils unearthed during construction of a roadway, in his case, in Chile. His group only had one week to remove the material and used a laser scanner to create a 3-D visualization or map of the fossils, he said. The researchers then used a 3-D printer to create a physical model of the fossils, Pyenson said at the AAAS meeting.

    The teeth of "Willy" are severely worn down, suggesting that this whale may have eaten large animals like sharks. Modern-day, offshore killer whales show a similar pattern of tooth wear, which results from feeding on thick-skinned sleeper sharks, Rivin said.

    Reach Douglas Main at dmain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @Douglas_Main.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.