In the Eastern Tropical Pacific, 10 surveys covering 281,000 km (equivalent to circling the Earth seven times) saw blue whales only 142 times: one sighting every 1940 km... roughly the distance from Seattle to San Diego. Barlow et al. doi.org/10.1111/mms....

Hey everyone, last chance to sign up as a member of the American Cetacean Society and get a hard copy of the upcoming Whalewatcher issue (136 pages of amazing blue whale goodness edited by yours truly) acs.memberclicks.net/membership

Hey everyone, last chance to sign up as a member of the American Cetacean Society and get a hard copy of the upcoming Whalewatcher issue (136 pages of amazing blue whale goodness edited by yours truly) acs.memberclicks.net/membership

Ship-based surveys 1986-2006 in the Eastern Tropical Pacific show blue whale high densities off Baja, Costa Rica Dome, and Galapagos. There is a clear increase in abundance: 1008 in 1986-90; 3860 in 1998-2006; and an average over all years of 2434. Barlow et al. (2006) doi.org/10.1111/mms....

Top 100 unanswered science questions... No 70: Blue whales are the biggest animals ever to exist on Earth. Where are their babies born? www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/s...

What Are the Biggest Questions in Science Today? 100 Scientists Weigh In.

We asked 100 scientists about unsolved problems in their fields. They sent back provocations — on the origins of life, the possibilities for human progress and much more.

nytimes.com

Multiple blue whale sightings off Kamchatka Peninsula in June 2017 [blue circles] kamniro.elpub.ru/jour/article...

Blue whales are at the bottom of the food web relative to other marine mammals in the Atlantic Arctic: low isotopic nitrogen (y-axis) shows their position doi.org/10.1016/j.ec...

New paper: monumental new compilation of blue whale strandings from antiquity to the present, led by Kristina Randrup and @trevorabranch.bsky.social. We found 541 reported records of which 303 were verified as blue whales with high certainty doi.org/10.1111/mms....

New paper: monumental new compilation of blue whale strandings from antiquity to the present, led by Kristina Randrup and @trevorabranch.bsky.social. We found 541 reported records of which 303 were verified as blue whales with high certainty doi.org/10.1111/mms....

Blue whales in the North Atlantic have distinct "arch" and D-calls that are audible to humans and differ from their songs. In the Gulf of St Lawrence, D-calls are about 4 times more common. While song is male-only, arch and D-calls are produced by both sexes doi.org/10.1109/CAOS...

The lower jaw bone of a blue whale is the largest single bone of any vertebrate ever, including fossils. It is enormously stronger and bigger than the same bone of a common minke whale doi.org/10.1111/j.10...

Why are blue whales migrating past Timor Leste covered with hundreds (hundreds!!!) of cookie-cutter shark bites? Cool video from OceanX starring Mark Meekan youtu.be/GMJrFE27chc?...

Blue Whales Are Covered in Hundreds of Shark-Bite Craters (Timor-Leste)

YouTube video by OceanX

youtu.be

Blue whales [B. musculus] still very rare in the western Antarctic Peninsula region compared to fin, humpback, and minke whales: only 28 sightings in 39,336 km of search effort doi.org/10.1007/s003...

Surprisingly interesting list of questions on the TV show Qi that are about blue whales (or not)... and the long-running Alan Davies gags about them qi.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Wh...

Blue Whale

The "blue whale", as well as being an animal, is an ongoing gag where resident panellist Alan Davies gives "Blue Whale" as an answer to a question, usually resulting in a forfeit. However, there have ...

qi.fandom.com

What was the longest ever blue whale? Find out in the next issue of Whalewatcher: all blue whales all the time. ACS members get a free printed copy www.acsonline.org/membership

Entire special issue of Whalewatcher on blue whales coming soon! Greatest of all time! Edited by yours truly with 30 articles over 130+ gorgeous pages. Members of the American Cetacean Society get a printed copy, become a member here: www.acsonline.org/membership

Travels and travails of the blue whale skeleton put on display in a multitude of countries after being brought to shore in Oostende in 1827 Redman 2015 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Really cool paper shows how blue whales (and other lunge-feeders) raise their upper jaw to prevent falling over when they open their lower jaw and inflate the pouch for gulp feeding. Results based on video, physical models, and simulation models. Fish et al. 2026 doi.org/10.1111/mms....

Blue whale sightings in the Gulf of California and off Baja California, Mexico (blue circle), and the proposed shipping route for LNG ships from Puerto Liberdad Source: earthjustice.org/wp-content/u...

Radically different sternum shapes in adult blue whales (bottom right) compare to juveniles and other whale species. The sternum bone is where all the muscles attach that allow lunge feeding, and determines the kind of filter feeding for each species doi.org/10.1007/s109...

Compilation of 60 satellite tags on blue whales around Australia/Indonesia reveals migration pathways and occasional vagrant wanderers Source: www.nespmarinecoastal.edu.au/publication/...

Automated machine learning tool WHALESHAPE used to find body length and shape for ~1000 whales including ~100 blue whales. Body length estimates within 5% of manual measures for 96% of blue whale images doi.org/10.1111/mms....

Differences between arch calls and D calls in blue whales in the Northwest Atlantic (Gulf of St. Lawrence). Trained detector is able to distinguish between them, finding that arch calls are longer (6.5 sec vs. 1.8 sec) Source: doi.org/10.1109/CAOS...

How do blue whales search for and locate feeding opportunities in their vast, fluid 3D foraging habitat? Check out our new paper, led by John Ryan, which provides a high-resolution answer to this question using a remarkable confluence of bio-logging and oceanographic data tinyurl.com/wa4usbpp

High-precision localized feeding by blue whales

Ryan et al. use biologging and satellite remote sensing to show how blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) can precisely and persistently localize feeding within a favorable foraging habitat by sensing a...

tinyurl.com

MBARI@mbarinews.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Precise giants: New research reveals how blue whales find food in a vast ocean 🐋 MBARI biological oceanographer John Ryan shares how a team of researchers used bio-logging tags and satellite data to learn how blue whales find dense swarms of krill. Learn more: www.mbari.org/news/precise...

Three new sightings of blue whales in the SE Arabian Sea, far offshore from India (225-1240 km from Kerala) in ocean depths of 2600-4500 m, all adults. From Indian surveys searching over 280 hr and 5900 km of trackline. doi.org/10.6024/jmba...

Surge in blue whale sightings off Namibia and South Africa suggests they are making a comeback after many thousands were caught on these coasts from 1910s to 1964. Presence of a high proportion of mother-calf pairs (3 of 14 sightings) suggests a calving/nursing region doi.org/10.2989/1814...

Two blue whales were able to precisely target krill aggregations for feeding by following thermal fronts: places with sharp temperature changes in the ocean Ryan et al. (2026) doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Blue whale calls detected in the mid-Atlantic Ocean on an extensive seismic network showing that peak calling is in December and centered around the Azores. Surprisingly many calls around Madeira Island given the rarity of sightings there. Figure S4 in Saoulis et al. (2026) doi.org/10.26443/sei...

Recorded talk: blue whales around the world. By Bruce Mate, Dawn Barlow, and Kate Stafford, to celebrate the installation of the blue whale skeleton at the Hatfield Center, Newport, Oregon State University www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNNZ...

Summer Seminar - July 16, 2026: Blue Whales around the world, OSU MMI Researchers

YouTube video by Hatfield Marine Science Center

youtube.com

Blue whales are very skinny (narrow, small body area) compared to humpbacks and Antarctic minke whales. doi.org/10.3389/fmar...