Scientists capture rare video of sperm whale birth. What did they learn from that remarkable moment

Rare footage of a sperm whale giving birth to a baby is providing scientists a window into the behavior of these large, elusive mammals.

The video, taken in 2023, shows female whales from two family lineages working together to assist in labor during critical moments and to lift a newborn calf out of the water.

This is a level of coordination that is extremely unusual in the animal kingdom, especially outside of primates such as monkeys and humans.

There are only a handful of sperm whale birth records in the last 60 years, and all are anecdotal or have come from whaling boats.

one in Study published this week in the journal ScienceResearchers who witnessed the rare moment analyzed drone footage and found evidence that suggests cooperation between both related and unrelated sperm whales to support newborn babies.

A ‘real’ morning

On July 8, 2023, researchers were studying whale communications from a boat near the Caribbean island of Dominica when they noticed something unusual.

Eleven whales – most of which were female – surfaced with their heads facing each other, writhing and diving up and down under the water.

Scientists immediately deployed drones and microphones to capture the incident. The entire delivery took about 30 minutes.

For hours thereafter, the whale pair held the calf above water until it was able to swim away.

“This was a really special event,” said study co-author David Gruber of the Cetacean Translation Initiative, or Project CETI.

After observing the birth, scientists developed software to analyze what was happening.

What stood out was how many mothers, sisters and daughters came together to support the new calf – including some who were no relation. Sperm whales live in close-knit, female-led groups, and observations reveal how these social bonds extend to the animals’ most vital and vulnerable moments.

“It’s amazing to think how, when faced with this impossible challenge, these animals come together to succeed,” Shane Gerow, Canadian co-author of Project CETI, told The Associated Press.

Gero, a whale biologist and scientist based at Carleton University in Ottawa, talked to cbc radio quirks and quarks About their “surreal” experience in 2023.

“We hung out with the whales for about an hour and they were all in one group, the whole family together, about 11 animals. And that included grandmothers, mothers and their daughters,” he told host Bob McDonald.

“We thought they were calm and maybe a little defensive because there were pilot whales nearby and they are known to harass sperm whales,” he said. “But as it turned out, about an hour after we were with them, there was this massive loss of blood.”

He said he then saw “beautiful, tiny, little floppy flowers of newborn babyhood” in the water.

Soon, Gero and other researchers saw the calf’s mother and other whales – including its grandmother and “aunties” – being lifted out of the water by their noses.

“At first I thought maybe she was stillborn because they were so floppy. I will say it took us a few minutes to realize that no, no, she was breathing on her own, and kicking and moving on her own.”

What is all this nonsense?

Scientists also observed that whales made different sounds during key moments of birth, including slow, long clicks.

Those findings were detailed Second report published this week by magazine scientific report.

“Sperm whales talk to each other through these patterns of clicks that we call codas,” Gerow said in a 2023 interview.

“It’s kind of like a Morse code system, different clicks and pauses. And it went from relatively quiet to 11 animals that were talking at the same time,” he said.

The noise may have aided communication, helping the animals coordinate their birth attempts.

Gero also suggested that they might be celebrating birth in the same way as humans.

However, the findings highlight a host of questions: How did groups of whales form in the first place? How do whales know to join?

It may take time to respond, especially given how rare such video footage is.

But the new findings may at least partially give us clues to the whales’ hidden interactions.

“I think it’s exciting to think about the social lives of these animals,” said Syracuse University biologist Susan Parks, who was not involved in the study, speaking to The Associated Press.