Humpback Whale Hunting Krill in Antarctica

tags: Antarctica, Humpback Whales, Krill, David Attenborough, Planet Earth, BBC, streaming video

This beautifully done video shows breathtaking images of how Humpback Whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, hunt Krill, Euphausia superba, in Antarctic waters. This is a video clip from BBC's natural history masterpiece, Planet Earth. [3:50]

Quark Expeditions is searching for an Official Blogger to join a voyage to Antarctica. Their goals, according to an email I received from their official spokesperson, Prisca, are to have their official blogger write a daily blog entry in English about their experience on this Antarctic trip, and to help raise public awareness of the environmental and conservation issues that pertain to the Antarctic. To select their official blogger, they are asking candidates to enter a competition where the public votes for whom they think would do the best job.

I am a wonderful candidate for this job as the official blogger for Quark Expeditions because I have been a prolific writer of a science and nature blog for five years, I have earned essential scientific training and background as well as having taught all age groups from children through adults, I have always strongly supported environmental and conservation objectives, and I possess intellectual curiosity combined with a sense of wonder. I have proven that I write consistently and well because I am one of the few blog writers whose contributions have appeared in every edition of the Open Laboratory, which is a print collection of the finest science, medicine and natural history writing published in the blogosphere; I am also a published writer and further, my blog platform here at ScienceBlogs provides tremendous international reach. Furthermore, a trip like this would be an amazing way for me to thank all of you, dear readers, for supporting me throughout these past difficult years.

I've posted a picture and written a 300 word essay and my entry is now public. To vote, go there and register your email address (and create a different password from that used for your email). Then, within a few seconds to an hour or so, you will receive a confirmatory message at your registered email address so you can then vote in this competition. Remember, according to the rules, there is "one vote per valid email address" and no more than two votes per individual. So after you've voted, be sure to ask everyone you know to vote for me, too.

Voting ends at noon EDT on 30 September 2009, and the Official Quark Blogger will travel to Antarctica in February 2010 to blog about the experience, chronicling the action, the emotion, and the drama as their polar adventure unfolds.