File this under: "Well maybe we still DO have more to learn ..."
Whale of a Surprise: Humpbacks Winter in Antarctica
by Elizabeth Howell, LiveScience Contributor | September 16, 2013
Underwater conversations between humpbacks have revealed a surprising secret: Some of the whales in the Southern Hemisphere appear to skip their northward migration and stay in frigid Antarctic waters for the winter.
[...]
"I was totally surprised, because the textbook-opinion until that day was that humpback whales migrate to Antarctic waters only in the austral summer months," said Ilse Van Opzeeland, a marine biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, in a statement.
File:
Humpback Whale
From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
[...]
Humpback whales, which are about the size of a bus, are generally believed to migrate from the poles in the summertime to the equator in the winter, where they breed.
It's possible that young humpback females not pregnant with calves may stay behind in Antarctica to avoid the energy-draining commute to Africa. There would be enough krill near Antarctica to fatten up for future years, Van Opzeeland said. Later in their lives, after giving birth and suckling a calf, each female will lose up to 65 percent of her body weight.
[...]
Humpback Whales filmed up close and underwater in Bermuda
link to video
Amazing how they can sing, eh? ... Now, if only we could hear them 'talk.'
Just imagine what they might say ... to us -- the "other intelligent life" on the planet ...