A team of scientists from Japan, Greenland, and Denmark has made a groundbreaking discovery about the behavior of bowhead whales. By applying chaos theory to 144 days of diving records from 12 tagged whales in Disko Bay, West Greenland, researchers uncovered a 24-hour cycling pattern in their diving behavior during the spring.
The analysis showed that the whales swim deepest in the afternoon to track the daily movement of their prey towards the surface, known as diel vertical migration. This phenomenon is in apparent synchrony with their vertically migrating prey.
One surprising finding was the synchronization of two bowhead whales diving together over a period of up to a week, even when they were 100 kilometers apart. The pair would time their diving bouts to different depths, suggesting that they may be interacting through acoustic signals.
The researchers’ study provides new insights into how bowhead whales forage and socialize, shedding light on the importance of understanding these marine mammals’ behaviors.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2024-08-chaos-theory-approach-reveals-distance.html