— from LiveScience.com, by Kelly Dickerson, Staff Writer —
The newborn whale broke the surface belly up and researchers were able to identify it as female.
Credit: J Cogan/Center for Whale Research
A pod of endangered killer whales welcomed a newborn into the family a few days before the start of 2015, and researchers have now determined that the baby is a female.
Scientists first spotted the newborn killer whale on Dec. 30, 2014, in the Gulf Island archipelago, but now the baby has been spotted again, and it appears happy and healthy. Researchers were able to identify the whale’s gender while it was playing and skimmed the surface with its belly up.
The birth is good news for the endangered group, named J-pod, that roams around the Gulf Islands and Puget Sound in the Pacific Ocean. It’s especially fortunate that the new calf is a female, since the pod suffered the devastating loss of a pregnant 19-year-old female last month. If the newborn survives, it will be the pod’s first successful calf in more than two years.
Newborns typically stick close to their mothers, but baby-sitting is not unusual within a pod of killer whales, so researchers have not been able to determine who the mother is yet.
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