A blue whale fluking in the Gulf of CaliforniaDIANE GENDRONIn humans, skin pigmentation protects DNA from UV damage. Blue whales react to the sun’s rays similarly, darkening their skin when UV radiation is intense, according to a study published last week (August 30) in Scientific Reports.
“Whales can be thought of as the UV barometers of the sea,” said Mark Birch-Machin, a professor of molecular dermatology at Newcastle University and a coauthor of the paper, in a press release. “It’s important that we study them as they are some of the longest living sea creatures and are sensitive to changes in their environment so they reflect the health of the ocean.”
To test whales’ responses to UV radiation, researchers sampled skin from blue whales, sperm whales, and fin whales in the Gulf of Mexico between 2007 and 2009. They found that melanin appeared to protect against damage to the blue whales’ mitochondrial DNA, and that increased melanin was associated with decreased skin lesions across all three species. They also found that ...
