The story of Cape Cod commercial lobster diver Michael Packard being briefly swallowed by a humpback whale while in the water off the coast is being told in a.
An international team of marine scientists has studied the DNA of family groups from four different whale species to estimate their mutation rates. Using the newly determined rates, the group found that the number of humpback whales in the North Atlantic before whaling was 86 percent lower than earlier studies suggested.
An international team of marine scientists, led by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the Center for Coastal Studies in the USA, has studied the DNA of family groups from four different whale species to estimate their mutation rates. Using the newly determined rates, the group found that the number of humpback whales in the North Atlantic before whaling was 86 percent lower than earlier studies suggested.