The ocean is a big place. So big, in fact, that there is a LOT we’ve never actually seen. And although we knew that sperm whale calves do indeed require mother’s milk, no one has ever recorded the actual act of a sperm whale calf suckling.
The people who captured the footage were behind the cameras for an up-coming National Geographic documentary called Secrets of the Whales. The film, which took three years to make, is directed by James Cameron, the man responsible for Titanic, Aliens, and Avatar, to name a few.
Up until now, everyone just had to assume that sperm whale calves nursed. They’re mammals, after all, and all mammals produce milk. But in a strange evolutionary tweak, sperm whale moms have inverted nipples while their babies have those famous big noses. Since whales don’t have lips, researchers were baffled at exactly how those two traits could possibly work together.
The footage, however, shows something pretty amazing. “The young calf pushes her lower jaw into the nipple cavity,” narrator Sigourney Weaver explained, “and the milk is injected into her mouth.”
