Photograph by Flip Nicklin via NGM
If you're a frequent visitor of National Geographic websites you may probably have noticed the great expectation they are creating around "Kingdom of the Blue Whale", a new special documentary that will premiere on National Geographic Channel this sunday, March 8th.
In the documentary the world's eminent blue whale scientists find, identify, and tag California blue whales, use the DNA samples to confirm the sex of individual whales, then rejoin the massive creatures' stunning migration when they collect at a chimera known as the Costa Rica Dome. These experts have observed, firsthand, courtship behavior among the whales at the moving mass of krill and currents 500 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, hoping to find and record the Holy Grail of blue whale science: the breeding and calving grounds of the biggest mammals in the sea.
In the meanwhile, as a taste, this wednesday they released the following video featuring what may be the first Blue Whale calf to have been photographed (the picture above) and filmed alive underwater .
During a January 2008 expedition to the "Dome"—a warm-water region that draws blue whales from hundreds of miles away—the researchers had begun to lose hope of finding a calf. Then two telltale spouts began erupting at the sea surface. One of the spouts did turn out to be that of a calf, which approached the research boat—surprising the scientists, given blue whale mothers' protective reputations.
A photographer and videographer dived in and soon had the visual evidence needed to identify the whale as a baby blue.
National Geographic also provided the following wonderful images that you can find with others in this gallery
Photograph by Flip Nicklin via NGM
Photograph by Flip Nicklin, Minden Pictures via NGM
Photograph by Flip Nicklin, Minden Pictures via NGM
Photograph by Hiroya Minakuchi, Minden Pictures via NGM
Photograph by Hiroya Minakuchi, Minden Pictures via NGM
Photograph by Flip Nicklin via NGM
No they are not trying to kill them, they're just firing off a satellite tag designed to track his target's autumn journey
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