Study on humpback whales

Humpback whales can sail tens of thousands of miles (16093 km) every year, but they never get lost, and their migration route is almost straight. Their navigation principles have been deeply puzzling people. Scientists have found that humpback whales can use the sun, moon and stars to navigate for them.

Experts from the University of Canterbury pointed out in an article published in Biology Letters of the Royal Society that humpback whales mainly rely on "things outside their bodies" for navigation, and they may combine the position of the sun, the magnetism of the earth and the star map to guide navigation.

Scientists have installed tracking equipment on 16 humpback whales, and then used satellite technology to track them. These humpback whales swam thousands of kilometers north from the South Atlantic and the South Pacific, but scientists still don't know how they navigated so accurately in the turbulent waters.

Humpback whales will not deviate from the migration route by more than 5 degrees during migration. These whales tracked from 2003 to 20 10, despite the influence of weather and ocean currents, almost kept a straight line, and the deviation angle was less than 1 degree.

It has always been thought that many animals use the earth's magnetic field or the position of the sun to navigate during long-distance migration. However, scientists say that neither method can explain the extraordinary navigation ability of humpback whales, because the earth's magnetic field changes too much to explain the straight-line migration of humpback whales, and the reference points needed for solar navigation cannot be found in the water. Therefore, they suspect that humpback whales adopt integrated navigation methods.

Humpback whales hunt in polar waters every summer and migrate to warm tropical waters in winter, where they mate and give birth. Humpback whales swim relatively slowly and have very accurate long-distance navigation ability, which enables scientists to explore new migration navigation systems based on the empirical analysis of tracking data. A special nerve cell was found in the brain of humpback whales, which was previously found only in the intelligent brains of humans, apes and dolphins. It can be seen that the brains of whales such as humpback whales should not be underestimated.

Researchers at Mount Sinai Medical College in new york reported in the latest issue of Anatomical Records that they found a spindle-shaped neuron in the cerebral cortex of an adult humpback whale. This special neuron and its position in the brain are similar to those of humans and apes. The specific function of this special neuron in humpback whales' brains is uncertain, but they suspect that it may be related to humpback whales' cognitive abilities, such as learning, memory and environmental recognition.

In addition, there is an island neuron structure in the cerebral cortex of humpback whales. Researchers say that the function of these island structures may be to promote rapid and effective communication between brain neurons.

Humpback whales belong to baleen whales, and it is generally believed that baleen whales are not as smart as toothed whales such as dolphins. The researchers compared humpback whales with fin whales and several toothed whales, and found that the complexity of humpback whales' entire cerebral cortex was not inferior to that of dolphins.

The above new findings show that whales such as humpback whales may be much smarter than people thought before, and explain many smart behaviors of whales different from ordinary marine life to some extent. For example, whales have a very complex set of communication skills, and they pay attention to cooperation with each other.