From a calf's perspective: humpback whale nursing behavior on two US feeding grounds.

ABSTRACT: Nursing influences growth rate and overall health of mammals; however, the behavior is difficult to study in wild cetaceans because it occurs below the surface and can thus be misidentified from surface observations. Nursing has been observed in humpback whales on the breeding and calving grounds, but the behavior remains unstudied on the feeding grounds. We instrumented three dependent calves (four total deployments) with combined video and 3D-accelerometer data loggers (CATS) on two United States feeding grounds to document nursing events. Two associated mothers were also tagged to determine if behavior diagnostic of nursing was evident in the mother's movement. Animal-borne video was manually analyzed and the average duration of successful nursing events was 23 s (±7 sd, n = 11).

SUBMITTER: Tackaberry JE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7060748 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature