Whale Identification
Whales Recognise One Another - Humans Identify Species, Individuals
All animals need to be able to recognise their own species (for obvious reproductive reasons), and whales can certainly do that. Most can also recognise other individual animals, and dolphins might even give one-another names (using echo-location and song). Sound is very important for whales, but many species also have good vision – although they are a bit short-sighted in air.
How Whales Recognise One Another
Sound travels fast and far underwater, and most species have their own characteristic ‘songs’. Many whales will also beat the water with fins or flukes to make loud noises – some even jump out of the water to make an enthusiastic crash as they hit the surface on the way back under, but the significance of this sort of behaviour is poorly understood. Some clear-water species can also use their eyes to recognise distinctive individual markings, and many more will occasionally ‘spy-hop’ (poke their head out of the water and look around) as if they are scanning the surface.
How Humans Recognise Different Whale Species
- Using binoculars and cameras - Identifying whales from a boat relies largely on catching glimpses of the ‘spout’ or ‘blow’ as the animal breathes out, or of the shape of the dorsal fin and flukes as the creature dives. The size of a whale is notoriously difficult to judge from a distance at sea, but it is usually possible to say it was small/medium/big! Add in the fact that the distribution of most species is well known and it is possible to arrive at a tentative identification.
- If it is possible to get decent photographs then field guides can be consulted at leisure. An alternative approach might be to use a key, or maybe an online ‘expert system’ for identifying whales.
- Using an expert – Most people will see their whales from specialist whale-watching cruises. There will always be a knowledgeable local expert on board, and she/he will take all the pain out of the process – “That’s a Gray Whale, they’re always here at this time of year".
- Listening in – Specialists are increasingly using hydrophones (underwater microphones) to listen to whale songs, and, since sounds are so important to the whales themselves, this approach is likely to be very successful. Unfortunately the range and speed of the noises made by whales makes it difficult to analyse – we are still a very long way from understand what they are talking about!
How Humans Can Recognise Individual Whales
Fins, flukes, patterns of scarring and slight differences in colouring can all be used to identify individual animals. For some species there are now detailed databases, for example of the dorsal fin shapes of Killer Whales (see blog about the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo). DNA fingerprinting has been done in some cases, and sometimes family relationships have been worked out so it is possible to know who you are looking at and who their relatives are!
Main reference: Collins Wild Guide – ‘Whales and Dolphins’ by Mark Carwardine, 2006.
