Minke whales make Star Wars noises
By Susan Milius
Dwarf minke whales are not the strong, silent type after all, say two California researchers.
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Other whale scientists hadn’t noticed much vocalization from minkes. Nevertheless, Jason Gedamke and Daniel Costa of the University of California, Santa Cruz went to Australia to record the local dwarf minkes, one of the seven variants of the species.
Just who was studying whom wasn’t always clear. The 30-foot-long whales often clustered around the scientists’ submersible vehicle, approaching within yards. On one occasion, whales hung around and watched human antics for 11 hours.