Oct. 11, 2012 Returning briefly to the surface for great
lungfuls of air, the underwater lifestyles of whales had been a
complete mystery until a small group of pioneers from various
global institutions – including Malene Simon, Mark Johnson and
Peter Madsen – began attaching data-logging tags to these
enigmatic creatures. Knowing that Jeremy Goldbogen and
colleagues had successful tagged blue, fin and humpback whales
to reveal how they lunge through giant shoals of krill, Simon
and her colleagues headed off to Greenland where they tagged
five humpback whales to discover how the animals capture and
consume their prey: krill and agile capelin. Attaching
individual tags behind the dorsal fin on three of the whales –
to record their stroke patterns – and nearer the head in the
remaining whales – to better measure head movements – the team
successfully recorded high resolution depth, acceleration and
magnetic orientation data from 479 dives to find out more about
the animals' lunge tactics. Simon, from the Greenl