🐳Antarctic blue whales are the largest animals on Earth, but they’re incredibly hard to find. For almost 20 years scientists have used passive acoustic devices to listen for their distinctive calls and track them over vast distances. Now they have released a comprehensive snapshot of blue whale distribution around Antarctica, based on this acoustic data. Passive acoustic monitoring will continue to play a crucial role in helping scientists protect these deep-sea giants. Learn more 👉https://www

Blue whale vocalizations are very low frequency sounds with some in the 15 Hz range. These tones characteristically travel long distances due to the high power, but also due to very long-wavelengths (over 300 feet for 15 Hz). This enables their songs to be heard thousands of miles from the source. We can assume that the projection distance is important (Nature can be extravagant, but she is never wasteful), but we can only speculate why they need to broadcast their songs across ocean basins. The