SCOTTISH researchers have discovered that endangered baby whales learn vital migration tips from their mothers.
A 20-year study led by experts from the University of St Andrews has revealed that cultural traditions among southern right whale populations are shaping their genetic patterns.
The research found that migratory behaviour, learned from a whale’s mother in its first year of life, is an important factor in shaping the genetic structure and recovery of the endangered whale.
Right whales take regular migratory journeys spanning thousands of kilometres, from sheltered winter nursery grounds around the southern Australian coast to offshore summer feeding grounds, such as around Antarctica.
The researchers constructed whale profiles using both DNA markers from small skin samples of living whales, which were then used to look at population structure and relatedness, and micro-chemical markers, used to look at feeding ground preferences.
They found whales that showed similar feeding ground preferences were more likely to be related, using both maternally-inherited and bi-parentally inherited DNA markers.
The team also discovered significant differences in maternally-inherited DNA markers among winter calving grounds, backing up the idea that baby whales are learning migratory habits from their mothers.
Dr Emma Carroll, of the School of Biology of the University of St Andrews, said: “Migratory culture is where parents transmit preferences in migratory destinations to their offspring through experience, rather than an instinctual basis.
“It seems that this migratory culture shapes the genetic patterns we see in Australian right whales on both their summer feeding and winter nursery grounds.”
The southern right whale is a large, long-lived species that is still recovering from intensive whaling during the 19th century.
It is endangered in Australia and New Zealand, and in South-east Australia in particular. The species is so rare that it took 20 years to collect the samples used in the study.
Last month a drone captured beautiful footage of four rare southern right whales, including a small albino calf, frolicking in the light blue water off the Western Australian coast.
The small light whale with darker colouring around its blowhole is seen rolling in the water just above its mother, who has the typically dark features of a southern right whale.
The video captured by the Department of Parks and Wildlife on Point Anne in Fitzgerald river National Park, close to 200km east of Albany, Western Australia also shows two larger dark southern right whales floating close by the mother and calf duo.
With a current population of only 3000 southern right whales across Australia, it is very uncommon to see a partial albino southern right whale, and there are estimated to be only six in the population that live off the west coast.
The southern right whale has had a harder time growing its population because the mammals do not breed as frequently – if a mother has a calf one year, it is likely she will not have another for several more years.
The rare whales earned their named in the 1800s when they were hunted frequently and used for numerous projects so they were nicknamed “the right whales to hunt”.
Dolphins captured in Firth waters on video
CONSERVATIONISTS at the University of Aberdeen have captured amazing footage of dolphins in the Moray Firth despite the murky water.
The team, who work for the university’s Lighthouse Field Station, finally managed to get some good underwater video clips, which will help give them a great insight into the underwater lives of dolphins.
The firth provides habitat to the world’s most northerly resident population of bottlenose dolphins.
The team took the footage in September and have now uploaded it to their Facebook page.
The field station is an old lighthouse in Cromarty that has been used by university scientists to research marine life since the early 1990s.
According to a recent survey of the animals, which are protected by European Union rules, an estimated 102 individual dolphins breed and feed in the firth.
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