Abstract
Despite its biological importance, the nursing behavior in baleen whales has been poorly documented mainly because of the challenges in tracking whales in their natural environment. We studied the suckling behavior (nursing from the calf's perspective) in < 3-month-old humpback whale calves off Sainte Marie Island, Madagascar, South Western Indian Ocean (breeding/calving area). We investigated the temporal pattern of the suckling behavior, its spatial and behavioral context, and the ontogeny of these characteristics. We exploited data from both camera-equipped and non-camera-equipped animal-borne multi-sensor tags (Acousonde and CATS cam) collected from 2013 to 2022 (37 calves). Our dataset constitutes the largest sample assembled so far to investigate the suckling behavior in free-ranging whales. We found that the suckling event duration does not vary much with the calves’ relative age. The estimated proportion of time spent suckling ranged between 0.8 and 1.6%. The suckling events mainly occurred during the descent and bottom phases of dives and rarely during the ascent phase of dives or surface activities. Strong evidence of humpback whale suckling at night is presented for the first time. We found that suckling events were often performed in bouts of 2–6 events. Suckling bouts mostly occurred less than 10 min apart, and suckling sessions were separated by about 2 h of non-suckling periods. In other words, humpback whale calves suckled several times throughout the day in short sessions similar to terrestrial “followers.” Our results add to the evidence that humpback whales, and potentially most baleen whales, are behaviorally and functionally similar to terrestrial “followers” regarding maternal strategy.
Significance statement
Young mammals rely on the milk provided by their mother to survive during their early life stage. The suckling behavior, i.e., the procurement of milk from the mother, has been widely studied for terrestrial mammals but not for fully aquatic mammals like the baleen whales due to the challenges in tracking them. By placing sensors and cameras on calves, we described the suckling pattern in humpback whales, the most common baleen whale species. We found that the temporal pattern of suckling in humpback whales is similar to those of terrestrial precocial mammals experiencing comparable environments (open habitat with predators): the young suckle frequently but in short sessions. Our results offer a new insight supporting the hypothesis that the rearing strategy used by baleen whales is an aquatic version of the “following” behavior found in these precocial terrestrial species.
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Data availability
The dataset generated and analyzed during the current study are available in the Supplemental Data S1.
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Acknowledgements
We warmly thank the Cétamada team members, including the interns and eco-volunteers since 2013, who contributed to the data collection. We are also deeply appreciative of the reviewers for their valuable insights and constructive feedback, which significantly enhanced the quality of the present manuscript. A special thanks goes to Aina F Ramanampamonjy, whose presence and unwavering local support made the fieldwork possible over the past three years, playing a crucial role in the successful execution of this project.
Funding
This study was supported and funded by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Cétamada association, the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (MARG Program), the Society for Marine Mammalogy (2021 Research Grant), the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC seed grant), the CeSigma company, and donors who supported the study via the KissKissBankBank crowdfunding platform for MNR. MNR received a cotutelle Ph.D. scholarship from the ADI2020 project funded by the IDEX Paris-Saclay, ANR-11-IDEX-0003-02.
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MNR, CH, IC, OA, and AS conceived the ideas and designed methodology; MNR, CH, IC, OA, and AS collected the data; MNR led the writing of the manuscript. All authors interpreted the data, contributed critically to the drafts, and gave final approval for publication.
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All methods and approaches were reviewed and approved by the Ministry of Fisheries Resources, Madagascar, under the Malagasy national research permits #44/13-MPRH/SG/DGPRH, #43/14-MRHP/SG/DGRHP, #46/15-MRHP/SG/DGRHP, #28/16-MRHP/SG/DGRHP, #26/17-MRHP/SG/DGRHP and #28/18-MRHP/SG/DGRHP, #36/19-MAEP/SG/DGPA, #30/21-MAEP/SG/DGPA, and #54/22-MPEB/SG/DGPA and complies with the European Union Directive on the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific Purposes (EU Directive 2010/63/EU). We took great care to minimize animal disturbances by respecting a strict protocol: slow speed approach, brief deployment time, and interruption of the tagging procedure when avoidance behaviors have been detected. In addition, tagging were only done by experienced operators. Tagged animals were not followed after the tagging to prevent exacerbating any disturbance of their behavior.
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Ratsimbazafindranahaka, M.N., Huetz, C., Reidenberg, J.S. et al. Humpback whale suckling behavior: an insight into the mother-offspring strategy in mysticetes. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 77, 96 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-023-03369-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-023-03369-9