Hybrid Whale | National Geographic

in Monterrey DNA detective Steve Palumbi
is hot on the trail of other blue whales
in the mid 90s he brought a synthetic
copy of suspicious whale DNA back to his
lab in California when he analyzes that
replica he finds what he feared blue
whale it is a match for an individual
whale already in GenBank that not only
is it a is a good match to a blue whale
sequence it’s a perfect match to this
blue whale sequence that’s all gentlemen
it is a shocking discovery no blue
whales have been hunted legally for a
very long time and blue ELLs are not
abundant enough to even consider hunting
so if there’s illegal trade in blue
whales and that’s a major major problem
there’s something else that is
problematic about this whale
mitochondrial DNA the genetic legacy
from the mother is definitely blue whale
further analysis reveals the other
parent is not it was a blue whale
sequence but it was from a whale that
had a blue whale mother but a fin whale
father it was a hybrid and that makes it
pretty much unique in the whale genetics
world this bizarre whale is a cross
between the two largest whale species
adult blue whales can reach close to 100
feet long fin whales are the next
largest stretching approximately 80 feet
hybrid whales are rare Scott Baker has a
theory why they exist they’ve been
reduced to very low numbers and they may
simply be unable to find opportunities
to mate with their members of their own
species