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Behavior and Ecology of Not-So-Social Odontocetes: Cuvier’s and Blainville’s Beaked Whales

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Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Odontocetes

Part of the book series: Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Marine Mammals ((EBEMM))

Abstract

While beaked whales are the poorest-known family of cetaceans overall, the behavior and ecology of two species of beaked whales, Cuvier’s (Ziphius cavirostris) and Blainville’s (Mesoplodon densirostris), have been studied extensively for more than 15 years in multiple areas around the world. This research was largely initiated as a result of the susceptibility of both species to react to high-intensity navy sonars, sometimes resulting in the death of individuals. In this chapter long-term studies of both species in Hawai‘i are reviewed, informed by research on these species elsewhere. Both species have small populations that are resident to the island slopes, evidenced by a combination of long-term photo-identification and shorter-term satellite tag deployments. The two species coexist by partitioning their habitat in three dimensions, with Cuvier’s beaked whales being found in deeper water, and diving deeper, than Blainville’s beaked whales. Diving and acoustic behavior of the two species appears to be driven in part by predator avoidance. Both species echolocate only at depth, foraging deep in the water column during the day and at night, with less time spent near the surface during the day in between the deep foraging dives. Ascent rates are also slower than descent rates. All of these factors are likely ways of minimizing detection from near-surface visually or acoustically oriented predators such as large sharks and killer whales. There appears to be no strong selective pressure for grouping in these species. Both are often found alone and on average are found in very small groups (medians: Cuvier’s = 2; Blainville’s = 3). Groups that do form appear to function in part to avoid predators (for females with small calves) and allow for mating opportunities (for adult males seeking mates). Individuals of both species tend to have ephemeral social relations, although one pair of subadult Cuvier’s have been documented together over an 11-year period. Blainville’s beaked whale males exhibit female defense polygyny, while sperm competition may play a role in the mating system of Cuvier’s beaked whales. Studies of these species in multiple areas spanning the tropics to temperate waters in two different oceans are beginning to earn them an important place in our overall understanding of cetacean ethology and behavioral ecology.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Some encounters with both Blainville’s and Cuvier’s beaked whales in Hawai‘i primarily involve the animals floating motionless at the surface for a few minutes, before they disappear on a long dive, usually not seen again during the encounter.

  2. 2.

    The methods of this work have been published in detail so are not repeated fully here. Readers wishing more information on methods for surveys and during encounters should see Baird et al. (2013) and Baird (2016); on photo-identification and association analyses, see McSweeney et al. (2007); and on satellite tagging, see Schorr et al. (2009), Baird et al. (2011), and Baird (2016).

  3. 3.

    As well as one sighting of Longman’s beaked whales and eight sightings of unidentified beaked whales that were likely either Cuvier’s or Blainville’s.

  4. 4.

    This analysis was undertaken with individuals considered at least slightly distinctive and with fair- or better-quality photos; see McSweeney et al. (2007) for definitions. This result is particularly surprising given the high proportion of sightings of lone individuals and a median group size of two.

  5. 5.

    This individual, HIMd206 in our catalog, was our longest duration track (169 days). HIMd206 also moved offshore of the island for a short period, as far as 72.9 km from shore.

  6. 6.

    Dive data from the two species also suggest niche partitioning ; see the diving behavior section below.

  7. 7.

    Beaked whales are suction feeders, retracting their tongue and using throat grooves to expand their gular region, creating suction (Heyning and Mead 1996). We documented one adult female Cuvier’s completely missing her rostrum and two adult female Blainville’s with rostrum deformities that might influence their ability to completely close the mouth (Dinis et al. 2017); but even with such deformities, the individuals appeared healthy and obviously able to feed.

  8. 8.

    Much of this is speculative of course, since so little is known about the reproductive cycles of beaked whales.

  9. 9.

    There were 609 dyads documented, but these analyses, with the exception of adult male–adult male dyads, were restricted to cases where both members of the dyad have been seen at least three times (together or apart, n = 167 dyads).

  10. 10.

    Note some of these were documented without the other individual present in intervening periods, but particularly for the citizen science contributions, we do not always have good identifications from all individuals of a group, so in some cases both members of a dyad may have been present and not documented.

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Acknowledgments

Our work is a team effort, in the field and office. Dan McSweeney deserves special mention for systematically photographing beaked whales in Hawai‘i since the mid-1980s and contributing them to this study, and I also thank Daniel Webster, Greg Schorr, and numerous staff and volunteers for their work in the field. Much of what we know about beaked whales in Hawai‘i comes from citizen science and contributions of photographs by individuals who work or play on the water, and their efforts are greatly acknowledged as they play a major role in our understanding of these species. In the office, I particularly thank Sabre Mahaffy for her contributions both to understanding beaked whales in Hawai‘i and to providing results from many of the analyses used in this chapter, as well as David Anderson for analyses of satellite tag data. I also thank a number of colleagues, Natacha Aguilar de Soto, Diane Claridge, Andy Read, Cris Reyes, Massimiliano Rosso, and Greg Schorr, for providing unpublished data and answering questions regarding their studies and Bernd Würsig and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript.

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    Robin W. Baird

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Correspondence to Robin W. Baird .

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  1. Texas A&M University at Galveston, Galveston, TX, USA

    Bernd Würsig

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Baird, R.W. (2019). Behavior and Ecology of Not-So-Social Odontocetes: Cuvier’s and Blainville’s Beaked Whales. In: Würsig, B. (eds) Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Odontocetes. Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Marine Mammals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16663-2_14

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