Whales dive in Synchronization miles apart

Bowhead whales dive in synchronization despite distances of up to 100 kilometers between them, according to a study by Danish, Greenlandic and Japanese researchers.

This shows that the whales use an advanced form of acoustic communication, according to Danish researcher Jonas Teilmann, professor at Aarhus University.

“It involves hundreds of dives over a week that are synchronized. It is unlikely that it would be a coincidence that two individuals dive at the same second so many times,” he told the Danish news agency Ritzau.

The twelve whales that the researchers followed were all fitted with some kind of transmitter and then the researchers used data logs to follow the whales’ movement patterns.

“What they all had in common was that when they were within ten kilometers of each other, they dived at exactly the same time,” says Teilmann.

“We think the whales are communicating about food resources,” he says.

The bowhead whale is one of the world’s largest mammals, growing to 18 meters long and weighing up to 100 metric tons.