Dr. Scott Kraus, vice president for research at the New England Aquarium in Boston will be the guest scientist at Bigelow Laboratory’s August 14 Café Scientifique gathering at 6 p.m. in the Opera House at 86 Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor.

Kraus will lead a discussion titled Underwater Vision: What Do Whales See? and share new findings about the unique characteristics that help whales deal with poor light and visibility underwater.

“Whales' eyes have adapted to work throughout the wide variety of seascapes they encounter - from deep underwater to above its surface,” Kraus said. “We suspect that whales' vision is a critical mode of sensory perception for prey detection and navigation, but remarkably little is known about what happens when whales encounter other whales, obstacles, ropes, or boats.”

Kraus has been a research scientist at the New England Aquarium’s Edgerton Research Laboratory since 1980.  He received his B.A. from College of the Atlantic, his M.S. in biology from the University of Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire. He has published over 80 papers in the peer-reviewed literature on whale biology, oceanography, fisheries, and conservation, and is co-editor of The Urban Whale, a 2007 Harvard University Press book about right whales in the North Atlantic. He is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and a member of the Research Faculty at the University of Southern Maine.

The laboratory’s Café Scientifique gatherings are informal discussions about scientific issues and society, current research, and the latest news from the field.  They are free and open to the public, with beer, wine, and sodas available for purchase. The complete 2012 summer Café Scientifique program is available on the laboratory’s website.