Diving behavior of Cuvier's beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris) off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina

Cuvier’s beaked whales exhibit exceptionally long and deep foraging dives. The species is relatively little studied due to their deep-water, offshore distribution and limited time spent at the surface. We used LIMPET satellite tags to study the diving behavior of Cuvier's beaked whales off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina from 2014 to 2016. We deployed 11 tags, recording 3,242 hours of behavior data, encompassing 5,926 dives. Dive types were highly bimodal; deep dives (>800m, n=1,408) had a median depth of 1,456 m and median duration of 58.9 min; shallow dives (50-800m, n=4,518) were to median depths of 280 m with a median duration of 18.7 min. Most surface intervals were very short (median 2.2 min), but all animals occasionally performed extended surface intervals. We found no diel differences in dive depth or percentage of time spent deep diving, but whales spent significantly more time near the surface at night. Other populations of this species exhibit similar dive patterns, but wit...