Whales

Scan of a porpoise head showing the phonic lips, which help produce echolocation clicks, and the round, fatty melon that conducts sound into the water

Some Whales Use a Creaky 'Vocal Fry' Voice to Find Food

Like humans, toothed whales have three vocal registers: chest, falsetto and vocal fry

A digital reconstruction of a humpback whale trap feeding, a behavior with striking similarities to the feeding habits of the "hafgufa" described in medieval Norse texts.

These Mythical Sea Monsters May Have Been Whales With Unusual Dining Habits

Tales of creatures like the Norse “hafgufa” suggest ancient and medieval people may have seen whales trap feeding

Whales are tricky to see from a satellite. Belugas, with their light skin standing out against the water, are a bit easier to spot.

Can Satellites Really Detect Whales From Space?

Distant identification of whales is improving rapidly, but finding the behemoth creatures is still surprisingly tricky

This year's picks include Black Lion, The Catch Me If You Can and The Slow Road to Tehran.

The Best Books of 2022

The Ten Best Books About Travel of 2022

After two years of limited travel opportunities, we’re ready to explore the world once more

Whole Foods will stop buying Maine lobster December 15.

Whole Foods Will Stop Selling Maine Lobster, Citing Risks to Endangered Whales

Fewer than 350 North Atlantic right whales remain, and the marine mammals can become entangled in fishing gear

A pod of killer whales swims together in Chatham Strait, Alaska. 

Video Footage Captures Orcas Killing Great White Sharks

The predation could explain why the sharks have been locally declining in recent years

About 230 pilot whales were stranded on an Australian beach. 

About 200 Stranded Whales Die on Australian Beach

Rescue operations saved around 30 of the animals

Fishers caught about 108 million pounds of lobster in 2021, valuing a record $725 million at the docks.

Lobsters Placed on 'Red List,' Angering Maine Fishing Community

Seafood Watch announced that consumers should avoid lobsters, because their traps threaten the endangered North Atlantic right whale

Along the Vietnamese coast, temples constructed in reverence to whales and other marine mammals—such as this one in Phan Thiet—house valuable information on the country’s little-studied cetaceans.

Inside Vietnam's Whale Temples

Centuries-old whale worship shrines are shedding light on the diversity and distribution of marine mammals off the country's coast

Ignacio Mundo measures one of the ship’s ribs

Can Tree Rings Solve the Mystery of a 19th-Century American Shipwreck?

A wreck off the coast of Argentina is likely a Rhode Island whaling vessel from the 1850s

A pod of orcas feeding in the Atlantic Ocean

Orcas Are Breaking Rudders Off Boats in Europe

These interactions around Spain and Portugal might be a trend among juveniles, scientists say

In the Mediterranean Sea, ship strikes are the leading cause of death for sperm whales.

A New Detection System Could Save Sperm Whales From Ship Strikes

Scientists have developed a computational technique that can track whales in real time—and potentially prevent collisions

Researcher David Webster of the University of North Carolina Wilmington prepares the bones of an Atlantic gray whale for transfer to the National Museum of Natural History.

Scientists Find Most Complete Atlantic Gray Whale Skeleton Ever

The fossil, uncovered in North Carolina, shows signs of butchering

Footage of the beluga whales is captured by the beluga research vessel, Delphi, which uses two cameras, one underwater and one above deck to observe 55,000 beluga whales migrate to the Hudson Bay's shallow waters.

Watch Thousands of Beluga Whales Migrate From the Arctic

Two webcams give a front-row seat to the whales' daily activities

An octopus, sea star, bivalves and dozens of cup coral all share the same overhang in an area adjacent to the Hudson Canyon off the coast of New York and New Jersey.

Good News

This Underwater Canyon Could Become America's Newest Marine Sanctuary

Hudson Canyon, the largest submarine canyon on the East Coast, is home to hundreds of species of fish and marine mammals

Chilean devil rays swim in the Atlantic Ocean near the Azores. 

What Are Scientists Learning About the Deepest Diving Creatures in the Ocean?

Animals-turned-oceanographers are helping biologists find out what they do when they get to the cold, dark depths

The anchor of Industry, a whaling ship that sank in 1836 in the Gulf of Mexico 

Cool Finds

A Shipwreck, a Robot and an Archival Treasure Hunt Reveal the Diverse History of the Whaling Industry

Free Black Americans and Native Americans once worked on the "Industry," a whaling ship whose wreck was recently identified in the Gulf of Mexico

Researchers suspect that breeding is a possibility because of how close the narwhal is to the pod of belugas.

Adopted Lone Narwhal Traveling Among Belugas Could Produce Narluga Calves

The mammal, now reaching sexual maturity, could mate soon, giving researchers more insight into the previously elusive hybrid animals

Nick Pyenson, the Smithsonian Institution’s curator of fossil marine mammals, compares the skeletons of ancient whales to the life-sized model of a North Atlantic right whale displayed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Whales have been evolving for more than 50 million years, and long before becoming ocean-dwelling giants, the earliest cetaceans walked on land. 

This Cliff Face Is Packed With Fossilized Whale Remains

An exposed prehistoric seafloor is a hotspot for relics, and now an international team is helping unravel their mysteries

A pod of orcas surfaces in Alaska's Frederick Sound

Scientists Witness Orcas Kill Blue Whale for the First Time

A series of filmed attacks confirm that killer whales will attack the biggest animals on Earth

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