Time is of the essence for a Brazilian neuroscientist who wants to study whale and dolphin brains before the brains decompose in the heat.

A humpback whale briefly engulfed a kayaker off the coast of Chile in an incident caught on camera. Experts say it couldn't have swallowed him even if it wanted to.

Killer whales off Mexico have developed coordinated hunting skills to take down whale sharks, adding to their reputation as the ocean's top predator.

New Zealand is a whale stranding hotspot. It's often not clear why they happen but the island nation's geography is believed to be a factor.

To target the tiny prey they depend on, humpbacks have developed a way of trapping them with nets made out of bubbles. A new study shows exactly how they do it.

A beloved beluga whale with a mysterious past was found dead in the waters of Norway over the weekend. Admirers are paying tribute as authorities investigate.

Kauli Vaast of Tahiti and Team USA's Caroline Marks both won gold on Monday, capping off a dramatic few days of competition that even included a brief appearance by a whale.

The Coast Guard said the two boaters were uninjured and their boat salvaged. They said the whale appeared to be uninjured.

Climate change is shifting the critically endangered species' migratory patterns farther north.

Scientists are testing the limits of artificial intelligence when it comes to language learning. One recent challenge? Learning ... whale! Researchers are using machine learning to analyze and decode whale sounds — and it's just as complicated as it seems.

Curious about other mysteries of nature? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

The jawbone of a nearly 50-foot sperm whale that washed ashore in New Zealand's southernmost region has been removed. While the act is illegal, it's also considered disrespectful to the Māori people.

Across the animal kingdom, menopause is something of an evolutionary blip. We humans are one of the few animals to experience it. But Sam Ellis, a researcher in animal behavior, argues that this isn't so surprising. "The best way to propagate your genes is to get as many offspring as possible into the next generation," says Ellis. "The best way to do that is almost always to reproduce your whole life."

So how did menopause evolve? The answer may lie in whales. Ellis and his team at the University of Exeter recently published a study in the journal Nature that studies the evolution of menopause in the undersea animals most known for it. What they uncovered may even help explain menopause in humans.

Curious about other animal behavior mysteries? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

After being hunted for decades, humpback whales returned to the Pacific Ocean in big numbers. Now, new technology is revealing that underwater heat waves are taking a toll on that recovery.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released details about the injury Wednesday.

84% of vessels failed to comply with “slow zones.”