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Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: animals • Delightful Creatures • Happy Mutants • joy • music • video • zen

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celestialcereal

they should be playing baby beluga!
- scifijazznik
  
  I was thinking “The Lonely Bull.”
niro5

Weird, I almost hired that same band (Connecticut mariachi) to play at my wedding. My plan was to have a mariachi band playing Beatles songs at a pig roast on top of a mountain for the reception.

It would have been great, if not for the wife vetoing every part of it.
- plisanti
  
  Sir, if you have a newsletter I would subscribe.
- Tzctboin
  
  Did you divorce her already?
  
  If not, why not?
  
  That is a divorceable offence.
  - niro5
    
    She keeps the sanity. My advice to any future groom: the wedding is her day, no matter kick ass a Mariachi band singing Beatles songs would have been.
    
    Also, Connecticut Mariachi is sort of a large amorphous group that will reconfigure to best fit the needs of your event. My guess is that the beluga wasn’t willing to shell out the cash for the whole ensemble.
    - Guest
      
      The pig roast on a mountain and mariachi band idea sounds AWESOME (some sushi would be good, too… :P). Why not just have a party sometime and do it? :)
    - jfh1913
      
      “My advice to any future groom: the wedding is her day”
      
      Really? What decade are you living in? So glad my wife saw it as “our day”.
jennybean42

That must be Juno, in the Mystic Aquarium. He’s an awesome whale.
martianzero

This is incredible. This video made me both smile at the amazing interaction, and sad that such an intelligent animal is in captivity.
http://www.facebook.com/agiron Alvaro Girón

What’s sad is that a 3 person trio is considered a Mariachi. They didn’t even have a Guitarron (bass) for pete’s sake. This is a real Mariachi. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZM8GDa6LkY
- Tzctboin
  
  Yep. That would be a trio.
  
  A real Marichi can also field a football team, the fat guy with the bass would be normally the goallie.
  - http://www.facebook.com/agiron Alvaro Girón
    
    If that is the stereotype you have fine, but in my 10 years of being a Mariachi musician, only about 10% of all Bass players are fat. And yes, a Mariachi can field a football team, and back home, sometimes Mariachi groups challenge each other to a match on weekdays. For reference, a typical, full size Mariachi contains 3-6 violins, 1-3(or 4) trumpets, a bass (guitarron) a guitar, a vihuela (guitar like instrument although smaller, with a curved back and only 5 strings) and occasionally a Mariachi may also contain a harp and or a “Guitarra de Golpe”.
knoxblox

I figure the whale’s thinking, “Great, now I’m obligated to go out for drinks with them later.”
- Marktech
  
  I figure the whale’s thinking, “Great, now I’m obligated to go out for drinks with them later.”
  
  I have that same fixed smile when I’m being serenaded.
http://twitter.com/PsychicWhoosh Michael W.

This has the makings of an awesome Robert Rodriguez film.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QSS5IBWFO2DWCRO4FAFJFIBIYA Bertrand

The music is not that good. If not, why the beluga poops at 1:06 ?
- Lester
  
  That’s just how beluga’s express their appreciation and why they are never invited to black box theater productions.
Lester

Does anybody know what song they’re playing…I have a tin ear, but it sounds like a Belafonte song (“Don’t ever love me,” perhaps?).
Ian Robbins

Song is “Yellow Bird”
- Lester
  
  Turns out that “Don’t Ever Love Me” was Belafonte’s version of “Yellow Bird.” With cool detours amid the Mills Brothers, the Kingston Trio and Lawrence Welk. Yay, learning stuff.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkpUuB37L-I
Lobster

That beluga whale looks a little bulbous with his blubber. He’d better watch out for eskimos.
- jeraliey
  
  (Macademia!)
Shibi_SF

Thanks, Maggie. This was great!
planettom

Shades of that Monty Python skit CONFUSE-A-CAT.
junglephysicians

“Do all oceans have walls?”
Jacques 2

Anyone else notice the whale showing its ‘appreciation’? by.. well.. taking a poo…. granted for most anything animalia, any time is as good as any other to do so.

Also reminds me of a music video where a kid watches his fish dance, though strangely enough the whale reminds me more of the kid than the mariachi
- knoxblox
  
  I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us, at some early point in their lives, grinned and made poo whilst being serenaded with Itsy Bitsy Spider…
TharkLord

What interests me is that the Beluga repeatedly presses the “melon” on the front of its head against the glass. Since the melon is used in sound production would that imply an attempt to respond to the music? Beluga+Mariachi=Inter-species Jam Session?
- catgrin
  
  I’m so glad I’m not the only person who wondered about that. Toward the end of the song, the beluga does press against the glass very intently with its melon. As the gas>solid>liquid movement of the song would dampen the sound, pressing against the glass could help the animal hear, much like pressing an ear against a wall. As for speaking up, we can’t hear the beluga, but I wouldn’t rule it out. They’re very smart.
Guest

RE: this video: SQUEE! :3
http://twitter.com/clemoult Craig LeMoult

Here’s an interview with Mariachi Connecticut’s leader (and guitar player) Eduardo Rocha about this video: http://www.wshu.org/news/story.php?ID=9002
starfish and coffee

I know whales live all their lives in water and all that, but who else is just amazed by how long it stays under water without breathing? There are a couple of casual floats to the surface, possibly getting some air, but it never takes it’s attention away from the mariachis.
hlva

Boing Boing’s actually featured some of the groom’s art before: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/08/24/kevin-van-aelsts-str.html, http://boingboing.net/2010/04/23/how-to-infuriateimpr.html, http://boingboing.net/2009/10/29/scientific-concepts.html. It was a great wedding, very fitting of the two wonderfully creative minds involved.
L_Mariachi

Embedded video seems to have changed to some sort of cyborg octopus in a tank. No Beluga, no mariachis.

Mariachis serenade beluga whale

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