How does an 18-foot-long, 2,000-pound carcass just disappear? That question has puzzled some divers and photographers who regularly plunge into the waters off San Diego. It started earlier this spring when Doug Bonhaus took advantage of some calm weather to scuba dive in Scripps Canyon. As he descended, a hulking mass took shape below him. There, at an exceptionally shallow …
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A South Carolina man pleaded guilty on Thursday to importing sperm whale teeth and bones from four countries and selling them in the United States, federal prosecutors said. The man, Lauren H. DeLoach, 69, of St. Helena Island, S.C., pleaded guilty to Lacey Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act charges for importing and selling sperm whale parts, according to the …
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For an animal with an ivory appendage half the length of its body protruding from the top of its head, a narwhal moves in the water with surprising grace. “It’s almost mesmerizing,” said Greg O’Corry-Crowe, a research professor at Florida Atlantic University who studies marine mammals. “The precision with which they wielded their tusks, it wasn’t like a broadsword. It …
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The English language is full of wonderful words, from “anemone” and “aurora” to “zenith” and “zodiac.” But these are special occasion words, sprinkled sparingly into writing and conversation. The words in heaviest rotation are short and mundane. And they follow a remarkable statistical rule, which is universal across human languages: The most common word, which in English is “the,” is …
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The Biden administration on Thursday withdrew a proposal to expand protections for an endangered whale species. The rules would have required some ships along the Eastern Seaboard to slow down. North Atlantic right whales, a rare species conservationists have aimed to safeguard, have been injured or killed by collisions with vessels along the East coast. In August 2022, the National …
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