It might seem like a “whale of tale,” but groundbreaking research from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute is the first to demonstrate that just like human societies, beluga whales appear to value culture as well as their ancestral roots and family ties.
It might seem like a “whale of tale,” but groundbreaking research from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute is the first to demonstrate that just like human societies, beluga whales appear to value culture as well as their ancestral roots and family ties.
Through a detailed genetic study of kinship published in PLOS One , an international team of collaborators has demonstrated that related whales returned to the same locations year after year, and even generation after generation. This inter-generational inheritance of where to go and when probably involves some form of social learning from members of the same species, most likely from mother to calf. The study firmly establishes philopatry to summering ground and most likely entire migratory circuits as a characteristic behavior in beluga whales.
Findings from this study also pin down the fundamental structure of the building blocks of beluga whale society and provide compelling evidence that migratory culture is inherited. It further helps maintain demographically discrete populations of beluga whales that can overlap in both time and space. Not only do these whales know where to go and where not to go, they also are passing on this information from one generation to the next.
Read more at Florida Atlantic University
Image: Beluga ('white' in Russian) whales' incredibly sophisticated series of vocal repertoires and acoustic systems suggest that they are capable of forming very complex relationships and groups. (Credit: Lisa Barry, NOAA/NMFS/AFSC/MML)
