Arabia's stay-at-home whales may finally get a name of their own

Most humpback whales roam thousands of miles a year between feeding and breeding grounds. A small family in the Arabian Sea never leaves its warm home waters — they eat, sing their own distinct song, and raise calves all in the same place. Now scientists who compared DNA from 2,285 humpbacks around the world say these whales split from the rest tens of thousands of years ago and are genetically distinct enough to be their own subspecies, Megaptera novaeangliae indica — a name first proposed for them back in 1883. The findings give Oman's conservationists clearer tools to protect a population the IUCN lists as endangered.