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Study finds Blue Whales are mating with sea creatures 85 tons lighter than them
In a new look at the blue whale genome, scientists shed further light on the animals tendency to mate with another oceanic species.�
Interspecies breeding is a well-documented phenomenon in both domestic and wild settings. Zebra and donkey, lions and tigers, and grizzly bears and polar bears are but a few animals that have mated in the wild. But as it turns out, blue whales are also partial to love across the genome.�
Blue whales are the biggest animal on the planet
In a new study published in the Conservation Genetics journal on January 6, researchers documented their time-consuming effort of creating a blue whale genome from scratch.�
The colossal mammals are the biggest animals on our little planet, reaching triple the length of a school bus at 110 feet or 34 meters. While they are currently categorized as endangered, largely due to commercial whaling, their numbers are starting to see a steady increase thanks to modern protections.
B. musculus musculus, a subspecies that resides in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans, is the most at-risk of the four types of blue whales. To better understand how inbreeding could affect the growth of the subspecies, the scientific team built their own “de novo” genome for comparison.�
Study co-author Mark Engstrom, told Live Science: “This is a long, laborious process akin to assembling a huge jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box for guidance.
They found, that on average, each sample of blue whale had around 3.5% fin whale DNA. While the interspecies mating has been well documented, researchers were shocked to discover higher amounts of hybridization than previously registered.�
“But the amount of introgression between the species that we found was unexpected and much higher than reported previously,” Engstrom explained.
Samples of fin whale DNA do not show inherited blue whale traits, which seemingly suggests that only blue whales will mate with the genetic hybrids.�
What does this mean?
The study showed a positive gene flow between blue whales across the world, which Engstrom said was a good thing. Such flow suggests that blue whales are more resilient to environmental changes than initially thought.�
“This gives me hope that with sustained conservation efforts, Atlantic populations can recover, he added.�
