The Loneliest Whale
A Peek into the Ocean’s Most Mysterious Cetacean
What if, in the deepest trenches and valleys of the Northern Pacific Ocean, there dwelt a magnificent creature roaming the waters without courtship or companions?
What if such a creature were destined to live her entire lifespan with little chance of encountering others of her kind? And perhaps the more riveting question: what is it? Could she be a whale, a hybrid, or an altogether new type of aquatic mammal not yet documented in marine biology journals?
There is, indeed, such an animal. William Watkins of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts was the first to detect it in the late 1980s. How we are to yet categorize this enigmatic mammal is anyone’s guess.
While the enormous creature was not seen or photographed, her yearning serenades were picked up by underwater hydrophones, first installed in the ocean by the Pentagon in the 1950s for the purposes of detecting Soviet submarines. And this ‘whale-song’ was no fluke; it has since been detected in 1990, 1991, and as recently as 2015. The ‘Loneliest Whale’ has been singing at an astonishing 52 hz. These deep monotones are well beyond the 15 to 25 Hz melodies of most blue and fin whales.
As there are few potential cryptids that can compare to the Loneliest Whale in terms of size, it would first be prudent take a look at the blue whale (she being the largest mammal we’ve catalouged) and appreciate just what kind of resplendent creature she is.
The great blue whale reaches a length of 98 to 100 feet, weighs about 190 tons, and has the muscle power to propel herself against the currents at between twelve and thirty-two miles per hour.
While feeding, she may slow to about 3 miles per hour in order to have her fill of krill, more than 400 million of which must nourish her on a daily basis. While her brain is rather small (fifteen pounds or so), her intelligence and grace cannot be underscored.
We are currently lucky to still have the blue whale with us at all; they were nearly hunted to extinction until measures were enacted to ensure their security in 1966. Only a few nations today, among them Iceland and Japan, still (legally) have a share in the whaling industry.
The blue whale’s impressive characteristics don’t stop there. Her heart weighs 500 pounds. Her tongue weighs three tons. And after courting every two to three years, she gives birth to a ‘little’ one weighing 5,000 pounds. Blue whale calves gain 200 pounds a day and drink 100 gallons of milk at their mothers’ breasts per day. The energy that the mother whale must expend to protect her baby, especially in the early days of teaching it how to come to the surface and breathe, is inconceivable.
Orcas are the blue whales’ only natural predator. Due to the whales’ size and strength, even several orcas have little chance at feasting on an adult. But without his mother, a baby blue whale is a sitting duck. His smaller size and tasty blubber are irresistible to a fleet of orcas, and many a blue whale mother has lost her calf to these wolves of the sea, despite compromising her own air intake to keep her baby at the surface to breathe.
Given what we now know about the lives and biological characteristics of blue whales, what can we infer about the world’s ‘Loneliest Whale’? Is she short? Long? Has she ever mated? And most pressing to us crypto-folk: is she truly a ‘cryptid’?
The answer might be a bit more mundane than we’d assume.
“He’s just ‘odd’,’ quips Christopher Clark of Cornell University, the foremost world authority on whale -songs. Clark explains that this oceanic loner vocalizes in season just like any other whale, which means that she is regularly ‘looking for love’. Lonely, as she is called, has human fans all over the world, many of whom stress about the creature’s supposed isolation. Suppose, they ask, that other whales cannot hear her? And even if they can, suppose they ignore her because she’s some sort of cetacean hybrid?
Potential Size
If the Loneliest Whale is, in fact, a blue whale (balaenoptera musculus) and of the baleen suborder, it may be inferred that her length might exceed the already-massive 100 feet.
Feeding and Behavior
Because the blue whale is so massive, it is extremely rare for them to be targeted by other predators. This is why blue whales are called ‘apex’ predators, a term referring to the fact that whales are predators while at the same time not having predators themselves. [Orcas, again, may attempt an attack, but such attacks are rare — the sheer size of whales generally repels them. In this respect, Lonely would be assured of safety as long as she lives.]
Our mystery cetacean is not necessarily desolate. Often, blue whales meander through the ocean by themselves, only seeking companionship when the time has come for courtship and mating.
When filtering ocean krill for a feeding, blue whales may slow to speeds of three to five miles per hour, but when agitated they can achieve up to thirty mph.
Small copepods may also be ingested by the blue whale, whose esophaguses are too small to eat larger prey and not large enough to swallow anything approximating a human being.
Potential Location
Blue whale pods are constantly shifting, but if we were to have a good chance at tracking Lonely, an investigation would likely begin near the Arctic Ocean. The temperature of the water there is certainly chilly, but it is often frequented by cetaceans because of the abundance of krill.
Songs and Communication
Given that her melodies were the first evidence of her identity, studying the methods and potential meaning of her lyrics is crucial.
Cetaceans like dolphins and orcas typically communicate with clicks and whistles, but these sounds are particular to toothed whales. They aren’t made by blue or baleen whales. Dr. Luke Rendell, a researcher at the University of St. Andrews, has this to say about cetacean sounds:
“Echo is part of the sensory biology of all toothed whales, but it is sensory — meaning it is used to aid hunting and navigation. Whale song is something altogether.”
Lonely’s siren songs are deep, low, and full. They also signify information about her family, her mate (if one exists), her social status, and even her krill-hunting style. Even if she were lonely, her lullabies would nonetheless convey everything about her to other whale pods while migrating from ocean to ocean. It would be virtually impossible for other cetaceans in her vicinity not to be aware of her presence.
Conclusions
Returning to the mystery of whether Lonely will ever be located, one ought to consider that marine biology would be fortunate to know of her at all.
Before the onset of brutal whaling practices, our oceans contained anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 blue whales at any given time. After the slaughter, however, scientists estimate that we now have as many as 12,000 whales remaining in the wild, and possibly as few as 5,000.
Given Lonely’s likely history, she herself may have been pursued in these violent hunting parties and managed to escape unscathed. If she’s as large as curiosity seekers seem to think, she may still bear the scars of these traumatic encounters. Blue whales are thought to live for as long as a hundred years, and possibly longer.
Is she healthy? Is she in love? Has she ever mated and nursed calves of her own?
These inquiries and others will likely persist until some trace of her is found.
In the meantime, marine biologists will continue to look for and examine her music, for the Deep Blue is pervaded by sound. A setback is that the noises of shipping traffic, dredging, and oil- or gas-exploration are increasingly drowning out the soulful anthems of whales. If it continues unchecked, our efforts to foster a connection to these gentle giants will be compromised.
Considering humanity’s track record when it comes to animal protection, perhaps that isn’t the worst thing.
Sources: Washington Post, Wikipedia, WhaleFacts.org, nhm.cic.uk, NewScientist.com, Smithsonian Magazine
