Article View: sci.misc
Article #91Re: Whales blowing rings
From: Alex Matulich
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 01:54
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 01:54
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keulen@csuvax1.csu.murdoch.edu.au (Michael VanKeulen) writes:
>This may or may not be applicable to Belugas, but there are some species of
>whale that blow rings as a means of prey capture. I saw a TV doco which showed
You are confusing two kinds of bubble rings. What you are talking about
is the whales' practice of swimming in a circle while blowing air, creating
a wall of bubbles around a school of fish.
The subject under discussion, however, involves a whale blowing a *single*
small burst of air, which forms an unbroken ring-shaped bubble underwater,
much like a smoker blowing a smoke ring. I remember in scuba class we
were taught to blow these bubble rings from the bottom of a diving pool.
We'd lie on the bottom blowing bubbles. They'd start out as small, fat
tori, and gradually grow to about 4 or 5 feet in diameter and about 1/4"
thickness before breaking up. They generated an interesting current of
water spinning around the body of the ring, resulting in an upwelling
in the center.
>the pool it may be a result of confinement, boredom or some such, but there
>_is_ a purpose in the wild. I've also heard of dolphins playing with making
There is a purpose to a circular wall of bubbles. But what about the
bubble rings?
--
_ |__ Alex Matulich
/(+__> Unicorn Research Corp, 4621 N Landmark Dr, Orlando, FL 32817
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Newsgroups: sci.misc Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!usc!sdd.hp.com!mips!darwin.sura.net!cs.ucf.edu!tarpit!tous!bilver!alex From: alex@bilver.uucp (Alex Matulich) Subject: Re: Whales blowing rings Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 01:54:50 GMT Message-ID: <1992Jul30.015450.16332@bilver.uucp> References: <1992Jul27.142023.28312@news.acns.nwu.edu> <c7lm+5g@lynx.unm.edu> <1992Jul28.014956.8592@csuvax1.csu.murdoch.edu.au> Lines: 30