Humpback Whales May Be Migratory Astronomers

An eight-year project that tracked humpback whale migrations by satellite shows the huge mammals follow uncannily straight paths for weeks at a time.

The results suggest a single migratory mechanism isn’t responsible. Instead, humpbacks may use a combination of the sun’s position, Earth’s magnetism and even star maps to guide their 10,000-mile journeys.

According to scientists, they are going across some of most turbulent waters in the world, yet they keep going straight.  They’re orienting with something outside of themselves, not something internal.

Humpback whales feed during the summer near polar oceans and migrate to warm tropical oceans for the winter, where they mate and calves are born. A one-way trip can last upwards of 5,000 miles, making the cetaceans the farthest-migrating animal on Earth. (One was tracked migrating 6,200 miles).

To better understand humpback migrations, scientists embedded satellite tags in seven South Atlantic and nine South Pacific whales from 2003 through 2010.  The researchers found that, despite surface currents, storms and other distractions, the humpbacks never deviated more than about 5 degrees from their migratory courses.  In about half the segments mapped by the researchers, humpbacks deviated by one degree or less.

Read more in the original article here.