'We don't know how many whales are in this group, but we suspect it's a lot by the enormous number of calls we hear,' study author Tracey Rogers said.
While blue whales are the biggest marine animals in existence, they're notoriously elusive. But scientists at the University of New South Wales in Australia believe that that they have discovered a brand new population in the central Indian Ocean.
The new population is comprised of an unknown number of pygmy blue whales. Pygmy blue whales, as their name would suggest, are the smallest subspecies of blue whales. In this context, however,"small" is a relative term. Their beefier relatives might dwarf them by dozens of inches and pounds, but pygmy blue whales can still reach 24 meters .
A rare blue whale breaches off the California coast. A new population of a smaller subspecies, the pygmy blue whale, has been discovered in the central Indian Ocean.Rogers and colleagues were reviewing data collected by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization , a collective that was formed in 1996 to monitor nuclear bomb testing when their suspicions were aroused.
During their review, Rogers and colleagues heard a whale song that differed from the ones sung by the three populations of blue whales and the four populations of Omura's whales known to inhabit the area. Far from being interchangeable, whale songs are unique in such sonic characteristics as tempo, structure and frequency, according to the newsroom.
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