Also to @lrendell.bsky.social and Roxanne Beltran @ucsantacruz.bsky.social for a really fun and productive discussion of this work as part of my PhD viva.

Huge thanks to my coauthors Prof. Patrick Miller & @saana-i.bsky.social at @seamammalresearch.bsky.social & Drs. Monica Silva and Rui Prieto at @azwhlab.bsky.social @okeanos-uac.bsky.social. Thanks also to Dr. Lyn Irvine for sharing data & @kztwyman.bsky.social for draft feedback.

Additional simultaneous tag and drone data will help maximise methods predictive power and allow it to be extended to additional species. Fortunately, these are exactly the data expected to result naturally from the current trend towards using drones for tag deployment.

In so doing, our method quantifies how density- and morphometry-based proxies of body condition are linked via true underlying lipid store. This allows us to estimate sperm whales fat stores from tags or drone data alone, helping us to track whales’ health accurately with minimal disturbance.

In our paper, we present a new method which combines simultaneous observations of body volume (from drones) and composition (from tag-based densitometry) to calculate absolute, whole body body lipid store in free-ranging sperm whales.

Hey Emma, would you mind adding me too?