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Whales

A whale with water gushing out of its blowhole would not be smiling. It would be drowning.

How Children’s Books Reveal Our Evolving Relationship With Whales

Storybooks feature a fair amount of factual errors—and those errors can be revealing

New Research

Whale Talk Pretty One Day: Listen to an Orca Mimic Human Words

Though it’s fun to hear an orca say “Hello” and “Amy,” the new study could provide clues to how whale dialects change over time

New Research

Narwhals Have a Strange Stress Response

When the creatures are frightened, they both flee and freeze

Transient killer whales, hunters extraordinaire, cruise by a sea lion haulout in the northeast Pacific.

A Tale of Two Killer Whales

Orca whales actually comprise two distinct types—and one may soon be destined to rise above the other

Humpback Whales

Trending Today

Mexico Establishes Largest Marine Protected Area in North America

The nation will fully protect 57,000 square miles around the Revillagigedo Islands from fishing and resource extraction

New Research

Blue Whales Have a Secret Feeding Weapon: Ambidextrousness

Though they tend to favor their right side, blue whales can switch to ‘left-handedness’ while hunting

Whaling captured the popular imagination.

The Real-Life Whale That Gave Moby Dick His Name

Mocha Dick had encounters with around 100 ships before he was finally killed

Cool Finds

Stunning Video Captures Humpback Whales Catching Fish With Nets of Bubbles

It’s a complicated but ingenious way to catch a meal

Having shown that it’s possible to identify whale species from baleen, Solazzo says, “Now we have a new tool to study those collections.”

The Innovative Spirit fy17

These Ancient Whale Baleen Artifacts Can Now Tell New Stories

How an innovative protein analysis technique helped solve a decades-old mystery

A baby gray whale surfaces in Magdalena Bay, Baja, Mexico.

A Whale’s Baleen Bristles Reveal the Story of Its Life

Like tree rings, these layered plates hold chemical clues to how the animals adapt to a changing world

Humpback whales sounding in Windham Bay, Alaska.

What Humpback Whales Can Teach Us About Compassion

Are these orca-fighting, seal-saving good Samaritans really just in it for themselves?

Kyara swimming next to her mother, Takara. At the time of her death, Kyara was just three months old.

Trending Today

Last Orca Born at SeaWorld Dies

The three-month-old creature succumbed to a case of pneumonia, according to the park

A "flukeprint" is a patch of calm water on the surface created when a whale flaps its tail as it cruises along just out of sight.

How to Spot a Hidden Whale

Just as a hunter leaves a trail in the snow, a whale forms prints on the water’s surface

The preserved whale heart weighs approximately 400 pounds.

Canada

The Painstaking Process of Preserving a 400-Pound Blue Whale Heart

This massive specimen is now on display in Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum

Southern Resident orcas frolic in Puget Sound.

New Research

Two Thirds of Southern Resident Orca Pregnancies Fail

But now scientists think they know why

A blue whale swims through the Indian Ocean. These massive creatures are the largest animals on Earth.

New Research

Why Did Whales Get So Massive?

The answer is a tale of massive proportions

Cool Finds

New Drone Footage Shows One Way Narwhals Use Their Tusks

The narwhals were observed using their signature appendages to hit and stun prey

Illustration of Mystacodon selenensis

New Research

This 36-Million-Year-Old Fossil Is a “Missing Link” in Whale Evolution

Discovered in Peru, the new fossil has tiny remnants of hind limbs

U.K. Killer Whale Contained Staggering Levels of Toxic Chemical

Lulu had one of the highest concentrations of PCBs ever recorded in a marine mammal

This copy of the first chart of the Gulf Stream was printed in 1786, ten years after Benjamin Franklin first drew it up.

Benjamin Franklin Was the First to Chart the Gulf Stream

Franklin’s cousin, Timothy Folger, knew how the then-unnamed current worked from his days as a whaler

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