In a flap ... how the flying fish gets airborne. Source: The Daily Telegraph

THIS photo of a flying fish carving the water with its tail shows how it becomes airborne.

Taken from a yacht in the Timor Sea, it shows how the fish break free of the water by angling upwards and accelerating to about 60km/h.

Their wing-like pectoral fins enable them to glide for up to 200m out of water.

Unlike almost all other fish, their unevenly forked tail’s bottom lobe is far longer than the top. They stay airborne by flapping their tails up to 70 times a second as the lower lobe touches the water.

Read full article from The Daily Telegraph.

Media release: Scientific whaling, the real truths

There has been much speculation in the media, as of late, regarding the practice of “scientific whaling”. Unfortunately, most of what has been reported has been based on emotion and a misplaced sense of adoration for the whale rather than on scientific principles.

The Coalition for Cetacean Research (CCR) is a group of scientists based in Tokyo, Japan, with absolutely no links to the Japanese whaling industry, but which feels many of the inaccuracies of the news reports about whaling need to be corrected so the truth may be known.

Why do we need scientific whaling? What more is there to learn about whales that we don’t already know? These are the sort of emotionally loaded questions that have been bandied about by the fanatical opponents of whaling in an attempt to obscure the truth about some of the most valuable research currently being undertaken on this planet. The CCR is co-ordinating much of this research, for the good for humanity.

One example of research the CCR is doing of major scientific importance to the whole planet, is the study of the causative links between whales and global warming. It is now widely believed by a great number of scientists, many of whom have no affiliation or financial arrangements of any kind to the CCR, that whale poop and farts may do more damage to the environment than the entire Japanese car industry. By catching whales and cutting them open we can measure the amount of poop and gas each whale contains.

Once this data is extrapolated over the entire whale population, we will be able to see just how truly dangerous whales are to the future of all life on this planet.

Read full article from The New Zealand Herald.

Picture: Tony Wu/ Barcroft Media

Dive operator Andrew Armour has become known as the Whale Whisperer after forming a special bond with a colossal sperm whale that allows him to swim nose-to-nose with a true giant of the sea.

View incredible images from the Telegraph.

View more outrageously amazing photos on Tony Wu’s blog, including one of a sperm whale farting!

Once a year, one of natures great spectacles takes place on the northernmost coast of the Gulf of Alaska. It is a predestined collision of two massive migrations – a David and Goliath event – when thousands of ravenous salmon sharks gather to attack millions of Pacific salmon. The salmon are desperately trying to reach their spawning grounds in Prince William Sound. The sharks are there to gorge themselves. But sharks? In Alaska? Of the roughly 400 known shark species in the world, this is one of the few equipped to ply these icy waters. In the end, the salmon run on an urgency born of their need to reproduce while the sharks run on hunger. This one-hour spectacular travels with the salmon shark and the salmon in the most revealing portrait ever of this rarely filmed, little-known shark: Alaska’s Icy Killer.

View more on National Geographic.

A pod of bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Florida have developed a remarkable hunting strategy in order to catch fish. Another awesome thing about this technique is that only one female in the pod can create this ring, and it’s always anti-clockwise.

From the first episode (Challenges of Life) of the new BBC Series Life.