{"id":175,"date":"2019-06-06T10:38:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T10:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/06\/a-new-captivating-research-about-sper\/"},"modified":"2020-02-17T17:59:54","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T18:59:54","slug":"a-new-captivating-research-about-sperm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/a-new-captivating-research-about-sperm\/","title":{"rendered":"The first published research about sperm whales in S\u00e3o Miguel Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have some great news about our sperm whale research, published online this week in Marine Mammal Science<\/a>.
\nFuturismo\u2019s biologist Miranda van der Linde, lead author on the research has been studying the sperm whales encountered during our whale watching tours for the past 9 years. This is the first published research on sperm whale occurrence and social structure off S\u00e3o Miguel Island<\/strong> in the Azores.<\/p>\n

This new research showed that just like in other well studied populations of sperm whales, the females and young we encounter live in units that stay together for many years. Some whales and units seemed to prefer associating with each other, indicating long term bonds between relatives or friendships between certain individuals.<\/p>\n

The research also showed that the majority of sperm whales we encounter can be recognised by distinct pigmentation marks<\/strong> on their bodies, not just by their tails. The encounter data and photographs collected by Futurismo\u2019s marine biologists are an important contributor to science and help increase our understanding of the whales and dolphins we encounter in the Azores.<\/p>\n

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So, the female and young sperm whales we encounter off S\u00e3o Miguel Island are all connected<\/strong>. They are very social whales and research led by our biologist Miranda van der Linde has shown that they form long lasting bonds and seem to prefer associating with certain individuals, which may be close relatives or could indicate preferred friendships.<\/div>\n

The sperm whales we encounter here live in \u201cunits\u201d of about 6 whales on average, but we have also identified larger units of up to 13 individuals. Two or more units can also come together to create large groupings, and this is something we often see during our whale watching tours.<\/p>\n

We have already encountered groupings of up to 50 sperm whales<\/strong> in an area. During our encounters we often cannot photograph the tails of all sperm whales present, which is how we typically recognise individuals (from the natural marks on their tails). However, our research shows that most of our sperm whales (about 78% of them) can also be recognised by distinctive pigmentation marks on different parts of their body.<\/p>\n

The image below shows sperm whales we have identified off S\u00e3o Miguel island since 2010, and how they are connected to each other.
\nDifferent colours represent the social units identified in the study. Circles represent females and young sperm whales and black triangles represent mature males.
\nThe connections show that female and young sperm whales mostly associate with individuals from their own social unit.
\nSome pairs of social units seem to prefer associating together, for example we often encountered individuals from the “red unit” and the “purple unit” together.<\/p>\n

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Congratulations to our marine biologist Miranda van der Linde<\/strong> from her dedication and research for years! We hope that you keep the good work coming!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We have some great news about our sperm whale research, published online this week in Marine Mammal Science.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[392,316],"tags":[57,39,136,137],"yoast_head":"\nThe first published research about sperm whales in S\u00e3o Miguel Island - Azores Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/a-new-captivating-research-about-sperm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The first published research about sperm whales in S\u00e3o Miguel Island - Azores Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We have some great news about our sperm whale research, published online this week in Marine Mammal Science.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/a-new-captivating-research-about-sperm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Azores Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-06T10:38:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-17T18:59:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/MirandavanderLinde.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"940\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"788\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Azores Whales\",\"description\":\"Azores Whale Watching Blog\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/a-new-captivating-research-about-sperm\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/MirandavanderLinde.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/MirandavanderLinde.png\",\"width\":940,\"height\":788},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/a-new-captivating-research-about-sperm\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/a-new-captivating-research-about-sperm\/\",\"name\":\"The first published research about sperm whales in S\\u00e3o Miguel Island - 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