Babysitting services with sperm whales

24maart2010
Source: demorgen.de
Most young mothers do not like to leave their babies alone. Even a short period of time is problematic. The solution is a baby sitter. This is difficult for sperm whales. They sometimes have to dive at great depths for an hour to search for food for their little ones.
Biologists of the British St. Andrews university and the Canadian Dalhousie university discovered that sperm whales have a solution for this: a network of babysitters.
Sperm whales search for food at great depths, up to 700m. This is no problem for adults, but the young calves are not up to that. Leaving calves behind at the surface makes them an easy prey for sharks, however. What’s more, sperm whales reproduce very slowly. They only get one calf every five years and the mother takes care of it for ten years. This is a very large investment, which has to be protected. Therefore, sperm whales set up a babysitting service in which other mothers watch the calf while its mother is looking for food.