Dr. Victor Schnoller
Marine Biology, Oxford
Expedition Journal, Day 16
300 miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean
Today was a mind-blower. We set off to free dive, hoping to make contact with Sperm whales spotted earlier in the morning. We went in the water and what we first thought was a single pod, soon became two, then three, then four, then seven. The whales kept coming. It was a migration!
Our footage was spectacular. We filmed and identified more than 80 individual animals. Many stopped and interacted with us, blasting our bodies with sound.
After a while, it started to seem like they were saying the same things, even between pods. One pod would stop, click at us, then move on, and the next would repeat it. Our audio playback confirmed our suspicion that individual whales could use similar phrases. They were speaking a unified message.
While observing the second pod I noticed that the whales had a bell-shaped jellies attached to them. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. I figured they were diving, eating jellyfish, and had some lunch stuck to their faces. The film playback showed each whale had a jellyfish stuck on its upper torso, generally positioned over or near the brain of each animal.
