December 19, 2025 — Far off the New England coast, whales swim slowly with their mouths wide open, swallowing clouds of tiny red plankton, Calanus finmarchicus, that provide their sustenance. One of NASA’s satellites have just learned to spot from hundreds of miles above.
The North Atlantic right whale, a critically endangered baleen whale that skims plankton at the surface, now numbers only about 370 animals worldwide. That is fewer living whales than passengers on a single large jet.
Importance of Calanus finmarchicus
Zooplankton are tiny drifting animals that move with currents and cluster in enormous underwater patches, and right whales rely on them for food.
Among zooplankton, scientists focus on Calanus finmarchicus, a rice-sized red crustacean that drifts in surface waters and fuels marine food webs, because it packs whales’ dense fat reserves that power long migrations.
The work was led by Rebekah Shunmugapandi, a satellite oceanographer at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine.
In the Gulf of Maine, dense layers of Calanus finmarchicus create an energy-rich buffet for whales, fish, and seabirds. Lose Calanus in this region, and you weaken almost everything that feeds higher up the food chain.
Until recently, scientists tracked Calanus finmarchicus using research boats that towed fine-mesh nets through the water and counted each sample by hand.
Those surveys give rich detail, but they are slow, expensive, and cover only a tiny slice of the ocean at any time.