whale tail in the middle of ocean. But we shouldn’t be afraid, because our summer wouldn’t be spoiled just like last year’s. The largest accurately measured blue whale was a 29.5-metre female that weighed 180 metric tons (nearly 200 short [U.S.] tons), but there are reports of 33-metre catches that … Correction, June 7: 2018: This post originally attributed a screenshot image to the Egyptian Ministry of Environment. Every Spring the Loreto National Marine Park is host to Blue Whales, the largest creatures on earth. Storms Reveal Two Historic Shipwrecks on England's Eastern Coast, Women Dominated Beer Brewing Until They Were Accused of Being Witches, Contractors Discover Forgotten Medieval Tunnel Beneath Welsh Garden, The Distinctive ‘Habsburg Jaw’ Was Likely the Result of the Royal Family’s Inbreeding, The Sad, Sad Story of Laika, the Space Dog, and Her One-Way Trip into Orbit, Fourteen Fun Facts About Love and Sex in the Animal Kingdom. Science First sighting of blue whale in Red Sea. Vote Now! The image was captured by Marcos Schonholz. The Bryde’s Whale is being regularly encountered in the southern Egyptian Red Sea. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including NYmag.com, Flavorwire and Tina Brown Media's Women in the World. The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond—And Why the British Won’t Give It Back, Five Things to Know About Queen Charlotte, The Bizarre Story of 'Vasa,' the Ship That Keeps On Giving, Polar Bears Live on the Edge of the Climate Change Crisis, Inside Naples' World-Famous Pizza Culture, How Navajo Physicians Are Battling the Covid-19 Pandemic. Their tongues alone often weigh as much as an elephant. These creatures can grow up to 30 metres (or 98 feet) long, and can weigh in at around 200 tons. Still, the sighting in the Red Sea, an inlet of the Indian Ocean that is sandwiched between Africa and Asia, is unusual; blue whales typically spend the summer feeding in cold polar waters. Despite their humongous size, blue whales eat tiny shrimp-like crustaceans called krill. The blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever existed on earth and is placed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s red list of endangered species. Brigit Katz is a freelance writer based in Toronto. 230 266 25. Humpback Whale Whale. A blue whale was spotted off Eilat 's Red Sea coast on Tuesday, apparently for the first time ever. 112 102 17. A blue whale has been seen in the Red Sea for the first time ever, Egypt’s Environment Ministry announced Thursday. Whale Humpback. The common name and specific epithet commemorate Japanese cetologist Hideo Omura.. Mohammed El-Said June 2, 2018 Be the first to comment. A blue whale has turned up in the Red Sea, the long spit of water separating Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea from the Arabian Peninsula. 182 188 30. (roclwyr/iStock). On Tuesday morning, a fisherman off the coast of Eilat, Israel spotted something unexpected: a huge whale swimming along in the Red Sea. Whale watching tours from Loreto is a world class experience. Whatever the story behind this blue whale veering off course, it's an impressive sight. Undoubtedly, to enjoy an unforgettable experience in the Red Sea, the best and most comfortable is to make a safari / life on board since you can access a multitude of dive points where the diving centers that do not come from coast or By distance or by the necessary logistics. Todas las rutas con guías e instructores españoles! As Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority noted in a Facebook post, however, “whales sometimes travel great distances and occasionally increase their range of migration for various reasons: availability of food, damage to other habitats, climate change and other causes.” (The post was translated from Hebrew by the Times of Israel.). We’ll be reading and responding to your comments. In a statement to Al-Masry Al-Youm, Ghallab said that the blue whale entered the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean through Bab al-Mandab and swam about 2,000 kilometers to the Gulf of Aqaba. The construction started on January 2019. 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. Commanding awe, they gr… The ministry revealed that the whale measures 24 meters (nearly 80 feet) long, and belongs to a subspecies known as the pygmy blue whale. But they shift … A marine patrol of environmental researchers in the Red Sea Protected Areas observed on Monday dozens of very large oceanic dolphins called False Killer Whales near the Sheraton area in Hurghada. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. Its massive size can measure up to the equivalent of two 18-wheel trucks. […] The fact that this whale is alone isn't too out of the ordinary though – whales often travel alone or in small groups of two or three, though they have been spotted in bigger groups, often around feeding season. Pin +1 WhatsApp Tweet Share Share Jobzella Email. Blue whale in the Red Sea. Fish and copepods (tiny crustaceans) may occasionally be part of the blue wha… A blue whale off the Channel Islands. Why Blue Whale Safari? Ocean Blue Whale Sea. The waters of the Red Sea are not only far away from where these whales usually hang out, they're also warmer than the spots the mammals would normally be at this time of year. As shown in the above Blue Whale Migratory Map, they exist in many oceans including the Northern Atlantic, Northern Pacific, Indian Ocean and Antarctic Ocean. Whale Tail Ocean Water. Give a Gift. But “[s]uch upwellings are rare in the Red Sea,” Notarbartolo di Sciara explains. They each have huge heads that are broad, long and have a unique U-shaped arch, and can reach up to a quarter of their body lengths in size. The project is being developed by Lincom Investments company which has a successful proven track record of many spectacular developments since established 15 years ago. This particular whale, a pygmy blue whale, was spotted around 300 metres (985 feet) from shore, reports Egypt Today, though it poses no threat to tourists or divers. Monitoring teams in the South Sinai and the Red Sea have been deployed to track the whale’s movements. “We hope that it safely returns to where it came from.”. They feed almost exclusively on krill, straining huge volumes of ocean water through their baleen plates (which are like the teeth of a comb). First sighting of blue whale in Red Sea. Keep up-to-date on: © 2021 Smithsonian Magazine. They can be found in all the world’s oceans, according to National Geographic. Calm (hopefully) seas, small intimate boats, and all around the sound of these giants breathing. Huge Blue Whale Sighted in the Red Sea for the First Time The massive mammals typically spend their summers in polar waters, but are known to occasionally migrate further The … Human infiltration in the blue whales territory is the most obvious and basic reason for these large sea creatures to be included in the list of protected species.The blue whale was included in the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) Red List, in the year 1960. A number of tourists who were on board boats near the site were delighted to watch them as boat captains made whistling sounds to attract the dolphins. Can You Spread Covid-19 After Getting Vaccinated? Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara, one of the authors of the report, tells David Obura of The Conversation that the Red Sea’s waters are not particularly hospitable to great whales. One hypothesis is that the whale has simply lost its way during the migration season. Three different species are known to dwell in its waters: the Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), the Minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and the Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera edeni). These whales usually rely on current upwellings from deep waters to fertilize phytoplankton, which are eaten by zooplankton, which are in turn consumed by the tiny critters that whales love to eat. National History Museum. The Blue Whale sea front resort is a residential resort consists of 50 unique apartments facing fabulous and panoramic red sea view and Giftun island. Established in 1964, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of animal, fungi and plant species. Other marine animals rarely spotted in the Red Sea have been spotted in recent years including whale sharks, humpback whales … A rare blue whale, the largest animal on Earth, has been sighted in the Red Sea's Gulf of Aqaba for the first time, Egypt's environment ministry said Thursday. You can watch footage of the massive mammal gliding through the water and breaching—much to the delight of a group of boaters—over at Live Science. It's the first time a … or The only natural waterway is the Bad el-Mandeb Strait in the south connecting the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean across the Gulf of Aden. First spotted off Eilat in Israel in the northernmost reaches of the Gulf of Aqaba on Tuesday (29 May), it was filmed further south about 300m offshore at Taba in Egypt two days later by marine biologists working on an unrelated project. © ScienceAlert US LLC. Terms of Use Egypt’s Ministry of Environment announced that a pygmy blue whale has been spotted earlier today for the first time ever in Egypt’s beautiful Red Sea. “This makes it a hard place to live for the great whales, which need big swarms of krill, small crustaceans, to survive.”, Fortunately, the blue whale that was splashing around in the Red Sea this week appears to be faring well. Blue whales tend to travel alone or in pairs. While the Egyptian authorities say they are carefully monitoring the whale, it's not clear exactly why it's veered so far away from home. The Blue Whale is the largest animal in existence. A blue whale has been seen in the Red Sea for the first time on record. Blue whales are largest animals ever known to have lived on Earth. All of which means we need to keep a very close eye on these gigantic beasts for the foreseeable future – especially when they venture into new places. In the past, several whale species, including the humpback whale, have been spotted in the Red Sea. A rare and endangered blue whale has been spotted in the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea, the Egyptian Ministry of Environment has reported, the first time that the largest of all the animals has been seen in these waters. According to the ministry statement, the subspecies that has emerged in Red Sea waters is a 24-metre-long pygmy blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda). The populations of blue whales across the globe remain in a fragile state, and the animals are currently threatened by chemical and sound pollution, loss of habitat, overfishing, and of course direct strikes with ships, or encounters with fishing nets. Blue whale, ( Balaenoptera musculus ), also called sulfur-bottom whale, the most massive animal ever to have lived, a species of baleen whale that weighs approximately 150 tons and may attain a length of more than 30 metres (98 feet). Experts were even more surprised to discover that the creature was a blue whale—marking the first time that the world’s largest mammal has been seen in the Red Sea, as Zafrir Rinat and Almog Ben Zikri report for Haaretz. The Blue Hole is a submarine sinkhole, with a maximum depth within the hole of just over 100 m. There is a shallow opening to the sea around 6 m deep, known as "the saddle", and a 26 m long tunnel, known as "the Arch", whose ceiling is at a depth of 55 m, and whose bottom falls away … After relentless hunting, these amazing creatures almost went extinct before gaining worldwide protection status in 1967. Blue whales are the largest animals currently inhabiting the earth and the one sighted on Tuesday is thought to be about 20 meters (66 feet in length), according to Oz Goffman, the director of the Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center. Famous for their sheer mass, blue whales glide effortlessly through the ocean, dwarfing all else in their path. 99 110 16. They head towards the cooler water of the poles in summer, to feed, then head back to warmer climes in winter to breed. Boat From Above. Animal Whale Nature. Blue whales reach these mind-boggling dimensions on a diet composed nearly exclusively of tiny shrimplike animals called krill. 241 318 25. 3 June 2018. Blue Whale Dive. Two days after it popped up in Israeli waters, Egypt’s environment ministry announced that the animal had also been sighted in the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aqaba, according to Aham Online. Smithsonian Institution, You can watch footage of the massive mammal gliding through the water and breaching—much to the delight of a group of boaters—over at. All rights reserved. California Do Not Sell My Info 676 791 61. "This type of whale does not constitute a danger to humans and does not attack humans, but the ministry advises people not to approach it," the statement read. Today there are thought to be a maximum of 25,000 blue whales in the world's oceans. “It looked in good condition,” Oz Goffman, director of the Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center, tells Haaretz. During certain times of the year, a single adult blue whale … Correction, June 5, 2018: This post originally attributed a Hebrew translation to Toi Staff, rather than the staff of the Times of Israel. Seeing a whale in this location is completely unexpected. Some of the biggest individuals may eat up to 6 tons of krill in 1 day. Please let us know your thoughts and opinions regarding the "Blue Hole in the Red Sea – Diver’s Cemetery" article in the comment section below. Before its formal description, it was referred to as a small, "dwarf" or "pygmy" form of Bryde's whale by various sources. Blue whales are the largest animals ever to live on our planet. Privacy Statement But only nine species of whales and dolphins are known to occur in the area regularly, according to a 2017 report by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), and large whales are very rarely seen. Aside from cleaning krill from the plates in its … Climate change is worrying for blue whales too – not only could warming temperatures push their feeding grounds further south and make them more difficult to reach, they could also reduce the numbers of krill that blue whales rely on for food. Omura's whale or the dwarf fin whale (Balaenoptera omurai) is a species of rorqual about which very little is known. The gentle giant of the sea, the blue whale is instantly recognisable with a long, streamlined shape, mottled blue or grey back and pale underbelly. The Blue Hole is a diving location on the southeast Sinai, a few kilometres north of Dahab, Egypt on the coast of the Red Sea. The primary and preferred diet of blue whales is krilltiny shrimp-like animals. Cookie Policy Blue Whale Watching Tours in the Loreto National Marine Park- Feb 05-Mar 25, 2021. Instagram: @bluewhaledive Safaris de buceo de calidad en el Mar Rojo. MAKKAH: Diver and marine life expert has called for new research into the activity of Red Sea whales after the first confirmed sighting of a pod of orcas in the waters since 2018. Blue whales usually have a finely honed migration routine, which makes the Red Sea sighting all the more strange. Blue whales are spread throughout most of the world's oceans, but typically steer clear of shallower seas and seas largely enclosed by land, like the Mediterranean Sea and – up until now – the Red Sea. 56 65 13. Sea Ocean Water. 498 likes. It is not a widely known fact that the Red Sea is inhabited by the gentle giants of the sea, the whales. A rare and endangered blue whale has been spotted in the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea, the Egyptian Ministry of Environment has reported, the first time that the largest of all the animals has been seen in these waters. About Blue Shell Red Sea the sea is a great emotion, with this emotion we organize boat tours for both snorkeling & diving in the paradise of abu dabbab in the turtle bay and the resident dugong and also in the most famous and beautiful site in egypt, elphinstone reef Continue The tongue of the blue whale is as big as an elephant. Since the opening of the Suez Canal to the Red Sea in 1869, it became the obligatory step of all the ships connecting Europe and Asia, It is a very narrow sea, is 355 km wide at most and 2,250 km long. This time we are talking about the actual blue whale and not that insane game. A blue whale spotted in the gulf of Eilat, May 29, 2018 – courtesy of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority The ministry said its marine environment experts will study the reasons behind the presence of the blue whale in the red sea, and analyze the results of such phenomenon. Advertising Notice