The largest living animal, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) which averages about 27 metres in length, has slowly recovered from whaling only to face the rising challenges of global warming, pollution, disrupted food sources, shipping, and other human threats.
The largest living animal, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) which averages about 27 metres in length, has slowly recovered from whaling only to face the rising challenges of global warming, pollution, disrupted food sources, shipping, and other human threats.
In a major new study, Flinders University has taken a stocktake of the number, distribution and genetic characteristics of blue whale populations around the world and found the greatest differences among the eastern Pacific, Antarctic subspecies and pygmy subspecies of the eastern Indian and western Pacific.
“Each of these groups need to be conserved to maintain biodiversity in the species, and there are indications that natural selection in different environments contributed to driving genetic differences between the high-level groups,” says study first author Dr Catherine Attard in a newly published article in Animal Conservation.
Read more at: Flanders University
Pygmy blue whale (Photo Credit: Flinders University)
