The documentary 'The Americas' has made a historic breakthrough by capturing the first-ever footage of sperm whales diving to the ocean floor. Marine scientists could only speculate about this behavior prior to the film, making this discovery a significant achievement in wildlife filmmaking. The production team, led by Mike Gunton, designed a special camera rig capable of withstanding extreme underwater pressure to document this phenomenon. This endeavor not only tells a compelling story but also provides valuable insights into marine biology and the challenges whales face in the depths of the ocean.
Marine scientists had long speculated that sperm whales dive all the way to the ocean floor to hunt for food. But they had never actually observed the whales doing so.
There are things that lots of people have seen but we've never been able to bring to an audience before. This is something that nobody has ever seen, and that's kind of a holy grail of wildlife filmmaking.
The distance from the surface to the seafloor off the coast of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea is a half mile, which means that the camera, newly invented by the production team over two years leading up to the shoot, would have to sustain pressure 100 times that of the atmosphere.
Sperm whales kind of break all the rules of biology because it's so challenging for any living creature to go from the surface of the sea all the way down there - the pressure change is huge.
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