Scientists are stating there's another breed of whale species living near Antarctica, and they believe it is a new kind of beaked whale, but the only proof they have for the sea animal's existence is currently just its whale song.
As of the moment, researchers led by Jennifer Trickey of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, at the University of California can only identify the new prospect whale species by its unique noise, known as Antarctic BW37 and Antarctic BW29. These whale songs were recorded aboard a research ship sailing across the waters near the Antarctic Peninsula, South Orkney Islands, and South Shetland Islands. These frosty waters cater to many undiscovered objects, and they believe these unique signals confirm a possibility of two new whale species.
The two new whale tunes were recorded utilizing a submerged hydrophone array that was tugged 200 meters (656 feet) at the back of the research vessel, according to Whales.org. The Antarctic BW29 was registered more than 1,000 times during 14 separate recordings. They thought the type of sound and timing it made is deemed distinctive, since the whale tune's structure does not harmonize with the recorded profiles of any beaked whales like Arnoux's or Cuvier's.
On the other hand, the Antarctic BW37, which is of a higher frequency, was only logged six times, and according to a theory, frequency of a whale's song corresponds to its whale size. It is possible a smaller known species created this higher frequency whale song, but it is also possible the researchers have found a new whale species. There's also a chance that new species of whale could sing at different frequencies, but this ability would be unique among beaked whale species.
Since the sub-species of beaked whales are the only cetaceans identified to utilize FM signals for their echolocation, these findings are breakthroughs for possible discovery of new breed of whales. All beaked whales are extremely elusive, and spend very little time at the surface so they use upsweep pulses that appear unique to each species to echolocate. The recorded signals also do not match any of the 22 known species of beaked whales.
"Lastly, given that new species of beaked whale are still being discovered, the source of these Antarctic signals might be a species that has yet to be identified," the researchers reported.
The complete findings of the research team were first published online in the journal of Marine Mammal Science in April 2, 2015.
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