00:23It was unbelievable.
00:25I mean, we had been there for almost an hour at that point when delivery happened and the
00:29little one showed up and that first little boop of the head came up and out of the water.
00:34And the boat had been silent and they weren't that far away, maybe a few hundred meters initially,
00:39but then they came and swam right by the boat, lifting the calf out of the water.
00:43I mean, it was, it was incredible.
00:57Never before have we had all of this technology to record from the air on a drone, to record
01:05from underwater using underwater microphones.
01:08All of the details of the interactions between the animals during a birth, you know, who was
01:15supporting the mom, who physically lifted the baby, and how they were related.
01:20Because we've known this family of sperm whales for the last 20 years, right?
01:24So it wasn't just animal A touching animal B, we knew that it was the grandmother supporting
01:29the mother during the labor process.
01:33The labor process.
01:48Baby sperm whales don't have much oil in their head, which keeps them buoyant.
01:52So in this process for another placental mammal to give birth underwater, the baby would basically
01:59sink directly and the fluke is still folded for the first few hours.
02:03So in order to successfully give birth in the water as a mammal, this type of communication
02:10and uplifting is, is necessary.
02:40So, let's do this.
Comments