Overview
- Two peer‑reviewed papers published Thursday detail six hours of drone video and underwater audio from a July 8, 2023 birth off Dominica.
- Researchers recorded 11 whales, mostly adult females from two family lines, coordinating through a 34‑minute delivery, then taking turns lifting the newborn for hours because calves sink at first.
- Audio analysis found shifts in click patterns called codas at key moments such as the start of labor and when short‑finned pilot whales arrived, tying vocal style to care and defense.
- Machine learning, computer vision and social‑network tools mapped each whale’s role, building on decades of ID work by the Dominica Sperm Whale Project.
- Authors suggest such cooperative lifting may have ancient roots across toothed whales, though they stress the inference comes from a single, unusually detailed wild observation.