Clues in the DNA of endangered blue whales –
the largest living animal – has shown that Australia is home to one population
that likely travels widely and is adapted to a range of environmental
conditions.
Blue whales are at this moment in Australian
waters taking advantage of the abundance of krill that occurs during the
summer.
They feed typically in waters off Cape Jaffa
(east of Adelaide) to Cape Otway (west of Melbourne) and also in waters west of
Rottnest Island in Western Australia.
However, these giants will not stay long:
they will soon be migrating north to spend the winter in warmer waters around
Indonesia, and will return again next summer.
"The question remains whether the blue whales using Australian waters are one,
interbreeding population, or are multiple populations that may have different
adaptations to different environmental conditions," says Dr. Catherine
Attard, a member of a team of scientists from Flinders University who set out
to answer this question with their collaborators the Centre for Whale Research
in Western Australia and the Blue Whale Study in Victoria.
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