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The “whup” and “grumble” sounds recorded by hydrophones moored in the Vema Seamount in the Atlantic Ocean, 1,000km northwest of Cape Town in South Africa, suggest this location could be an important stop on the whales’ migration route to polar feeding grounds.

Most of the calls were recorded over a period of three nights in the spring of 2019, with low “whups” being heard most frequently. This is an important discovery as the “whup” is a contact call used by mother-calf pairs to help them locate each other. Furthermore, humpbacks also “whup” while feeding.

A neonate (newly hatched) ghost shark was found in the net during a trawling survey at about 1,200 metres below sea level. The survey had been conducted by NIWA to estimate the population of blue grenadier (hoki fish) at the Chatham Rise, off New Zealand’s South Island.

Its body was translucent and gelatinous, and it had two giant eyes on its pointed head—with a belly full of egg yolk. "You can tell this ghost shark recently hatched because it has a full belly of egg yolk," said Brit Finucci, a fisheries scientist from National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

By Larry Cohen & Olga Torrey

Eugenie Clark received many honors, including the Explorers Club Medal, Franklin L. Burr Award from the National Geographic Society, and the Medal of Excellence from the American Society of Oceanographers. In addition, in 2018, a newly discovered species of dogfish shark was named Squalus clarkae in her honor.