Video captured of Blue whale mother nursing her calf for the first time

The first ever video footage of a blue whale nursing a calf was captured by a snorkeler in East Timor, Southeast Asia, and has been released.

“It’s certainly not a newborn calf.” Karen Edivain “But they’re clearly still drinking milk,” said the researcher, from the Australian National University in Darwin.

Edibane says capturing the footage is an incredible feat that has never been achieved before. The action was captured on camera by a snorkeler on an ecotourism voyage swimming with the pygmy whales off the coast of the capital, Dili, in 2022, and has only now been made public.

Blue Whale (Mushibaga) is the largest known animal to have ever lived on Earth, sometimes reaching lengths of over 30 meters and weighing nearly 200 tons.Southern wolfThe sharks found off the coast of Timor-Leste are slightly smaller, reaching a maximum length of 24 metres.

Blue whale calves do not attach to their mothers when feeding, but rather release oily milk into the water, which the calf swallows.

Edivain said the large calf seen feeding in the video is probably in its second year of living with its mother — blue whales are weaned at three years.

Other significant blue whale behaviours have been sighted and filmed in the area as part of the decade-long study. Citizen Science Projects Project leader Edivine said a database of 2,700 pygmy blue whales had been compiled since 2014 and that Timor-Leste may be a base for one of the world’s largest migrations of pygmy blue whales.

Newborn calves, courtship behaviour, pre-mating behaviour and feeding behaviour have all been observed.

“We haven’t seen a penis yet, but we’ve seen very affectionate adults having a lot of fun playing with each other,” Edivain said.

Caprivec The head of marine life conservation for the Western Australian Water Environment Regulatory Authority said that until recently no one knew how many blue whales were migrating off the coast of Timor-Leste.

Beck says he was incredibly lucky to capture the footage. Blue whales are often found far offshore, in hard-to-reach locations. “It’s incredibly rare to even be in the water with a blue whale, and even rarer to be in the water at the right time and place to film a calf nursing.”