Nitrogen isotopes are used to figure out the level at which whales feed in food webs, but getting accurate measurements from skin samples is difficult since oils in skin bias the measurements. A new paper corrects for this bias. Joy Cabrol: doi.org/10.1111/mms....

How do blue whales stop themselves tipping over when they inflate their lower jaw to engulf krill? The upper jaw! The triangular shape of the upper jaw keeps them swimming forward, acting like the delta-shaped wings of a fighter jet Fish et al. 2026: doi.org/10.1111%2Fmm...

People don't realize that we share Earth with largest animals to ever exist in the history of our planet.💙😎💙 Majestic Blue whale surfaced near Busselton Jetty, Australia.🇦🇺

Incredible video of blue whales in Loreto, Mexico, and the unique whale-watching methods used there that involve complete passive boats, engines off, resulting in lower stress for the whales, and longer times between deep dives, and a better whale watching experience! www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJxa...

Preprint: our systematic review of hybrids between blue whales and fin whales. There are 46 possible cases, of which 17 have been genetically confirmed (15 from the North Atlantic!) doi.org/10.22541/au....

Three blue whale sightings in the open waters of the SE Arabian Sea in 2024. Sightings here are rare, although strandings are common, perhaps because blue whales are mostly found far from shore in deep water. doi.org/10.6024/jmba...

Right whales, humpback whales, and other species likely were hunted in Brazil 5000 years ago, well before evidence of whale hunting in other regions. Remains even include one blue whale bone www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Blue whale songs continue to decline in frequency (deepening) in all examined populations. New work in New Zealand shows this decline is slowing over time. Songs are also higher frequency when there is more singing (during the breeding season, Feb-June). Barlow et al. doi.org/10.1121/10.0...

COMING SOON!!!!!! Entire volume on blue whales by Whalewatcher, that I have been given the great honor of guest editing! So many amazing articles in prep already.

Staggering array of bacteria genera (genera!) sequenced from the blows of blue whales. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Stable isotopes and mercury in baleen plates PhD dissertation by Malia Smith www.proquest.com/docview/3283...

Tags on blue whales in the eastern North Pacific show regions of high use (California, Baja, Costa Rica Dome) but also occasional vagrant blue whales heading to Hawaii, Gulf of Alaska and the Galapagos. By Palacios et al. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

For those interested, my talk was recorded and posted here: "FEAR: the impact of killer whales on baleen whales" www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lnU...

Blue whales in the NW Atlantic produce at least five types non-song calls ("audible calls" >25 Hz), labeled as short downsweeps, medium downsweeps, long downsweeps, hooks, and arches. These calls are associated with feeding, social calls, and reproductive competition. doi.org/10.1121/10.0...

FEAR: the impact of killer whales on baleen whales Talk on 19 November by yours truly!

Has anyone digitized Mackintosh & Wheeler (1929) Appendix III: measurements of bodily proportions of blue and fin whales? 24 measurements of each of a few thousand whales

The earliest known clearly identifiable blue whale stranding, 1 March 1594. Translation includes: length of about 80 ft, and 200 jet-black baleen plates, stranded on the border of Belgium and the Netherlands Source: Bor (1681, p. 784)

Postdoc fitting Bayesian spatial models to various streams of data on humpback whales with @afredston.bsky.social at Santa Cruz, CA recruit.ucsc.edu/JPF02003

Wonderful infographic on my paper showing that "flight" species of baleen whales generally call too deeply and quietly to be heard by hunting killer whales, unlike the "fight" club. By A Haddock & C.A. Gallagher, SMM Education Committee Paper here: doi.org/10.1111/mms....

We still love Tui De Roy’s photo she let us use on the cover of @society4conbio.bsky.social!

Does anyone have any incredible photos of blue whales that you are willing to share for a special issue on blue whales, e.g. drone, interesting behavior, gorgeous backdrops, mother-calves, etc.?

Blue whale songs from the central/western North Pacific population heard in the Northern Marianas, peaking in June and December but relatively low call numbers and likely from distance animals. No visual sightings of blue whales in survey. Source: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Two new blue whale strandings off the SW coast of India in 2023 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Blue whales not so great at turning corners, as measured by centripetal acceleration, only better than gray whales, while humpbacks are the clear champions (allowing them to produce tight bubble rings for feeding). doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Humpback whales are amazingly maneuverable, due to their extremely long flippers, and can turn on a dime. Blue whales are not too bad but clearly built for long-distance speed and not turning doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

We are very excited to welcome Trevor Branch to the podcast this month. Trevor is a Professor at University of Washington who runs models and does research on a number of things including Blue Whales.

Trevor Branch blew our minds a few times in the latest episode of the #WhaleTalesPodcast with his facts about Blue Whales but his Fun Flipper Fact might have been the most insane of all! 🤯🐳😲 buff.ly/zLH7Y0N #WhaleTales #BlueWhales @trevorabranch.bsky.social

We loved having @trevorabranch.bsky.social on the pod and are so happy that he shares his long awaited Blue Whale encounter with us! Read it on our website or listen to episode 83 🐳😍 buff.ly/B7A7AsK Photo credit: E. Cabrera, Centro de Conservación Cetacea: CCC Chile #WhaleTales #WhaleTalesPodcast

Very fun episode this month - @trevorabranch.bsky.social definitely blew our minds a few times with his incredible cetacean facts 🤯

As far as blue whales go no changes. Still includes B. m. indica as a separate subspecies (no genetic or other evidence). Still has N Pacific and N Atlantic as one subspecies (genetically separate). No subspecific status for SE Pacific (new papers show this is grouped with NE Pacific genetically).

Predictions of Antarctic, SW Indian, and SE Indian Ocean blue whale populations based on the extensive OHA-SIS-BIO network of hydrophones doi.org/10.1038/s415...

New free book: "Marine mammal acoustics in a noisy ocean", looks like an incredible intro to how sound works in the ocean and an overview of some of the big outstanding questions and answers. By Erbe et al. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Anyone have a copy of this "Proceedings of the Symposium on Marine Mammals of the Indian Ocean" Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1983

Cost of saving blue whales from ship strikes on the US west coast? Slowing vessels to 5 knots, with 8 deaths per year applied to 3% of region costs $28-78M. To reduce to 5 deaths needs speed limits in 43-47% of waters and costs $581-1217M doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...

I'm talking about how the fear of orcas affects baleen whales on Monday at Science on Tap in Seattle, always an incredible audience asking lots of interesting questions www.scienceontap.org

Very cool online stranding database for Indonesia, includes 8 strandings of blue whales, run by Icha Mustika and others. Paper: doi.org/10.3390/ocea... Database: www.whalestrandingindonesia.com/new-database...

Really cool study: detecting penguin and whale dives from the sonar on krill-fishing vessels in the Antarctic. Amazing graphics too. www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

"The greatest enemies of [blue whales] are whalers. And the narwhal or 'sea unicorn', a cetacean armed with a long pike, which pursues them, pierces them, and eats them." Who knew???? ;)

Incredibly old human-worked bone fragments in Spain/France include 2 from blue whales (labeled as "2" in the figure), and are dated back to 14,000 to 20,000 years ago! Most came from fin, sperm and gray whales... interesting since gray whales are extinct in the Atlantic now. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Long term blue whale song 2008-23 in southern California shows complex patterns: no clear trends over the decades; declining peak frequency over the time period; within each year a high frequency at the start of each summer then declining; no patterns by hour of the day. doi.org/10.1121/10.0...

A public talk by me 30 June in Seattle: "Whales fear orcas, changing their songs, migration and growth"

Incredible Blue Whale Fluke. Read the full story here: buff.ly/Yu7Pmrv Photo by Judith This is an encounter from 2014 #WhaleTales #BlueWhales

Satellite tracking of a blue whale from the Galapagos in August to the Costa Rica Dome in January and then to the outer coast of Baja California in July. Adds even more complexity to the variety of migration routes and paths for NE Pacific blue whales doi.org/10.1111/mms....

Blue whale song data from Mayotte (NW Madagascar) shows Antarctic blue whale singing May-August, and two peaks in SW Indian Ocean pygmy blue whale singing: May-June and Nov-Jan. Songs of Sri Lanka (CIO) and Oman (NWIO) populations detected, but rarely Dreo et al. pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/art...

Blue whale calls heard in the SW Gulf of California in the Cerralvo Channel, but only the male-produced song calls and no feeding/social D-calls. Calls greatest in Jan-Feb. doi.org/10.1016/j.rs...

If you love blue whales, and would like to support more research, federal funding here in the US is very uncertain now... I'd happily accept a wealthy benefactor!

@bluewhalenews.bsky.social I stumbled on a post you made on X about a stranded whale in Sri Lanka circa 1946. My Dad was involved in this incident and wrote about it in his memoirs, which don’t quite match the official narrative! Don’t suppose you know where I can find the original article?

A long list of unanswered questions about blue whales posed in 1971 by George Small. How many of these have been answered by science in the intervening 50 years?

Blue whale milk contains about 10 times more fat than cow's milk, it's up to 50% fat! Source: Gregory et al. (1955)