New Population of Pygmy Blue Whales Discovered with Help of Bomb Detectors
Published:16 Jun.2021 Source:University of New South Wales
Blue whales may be the biggest animals in the world, but they're also some of the hardest to find. Not only are they rare (it's estimated that less than 0.15 per cent of blue whales in the Southern Hemisphere survived whaling), they're also reclusive by nature and can cover vast areas of ocean.
But now, a team of scientists led by UNSW Sydney are confident they've discovered a new population of pygmy blue whales, the smallest subspecies of blue whales, in the Indian Ocean. And it was the whales' powerful singing -- recorded by underwater bomb detectors -- that gave them away.