A recent scientific study from the University of Queensland Australia demonstrating “cultural exchange” taking place between two groups of whales will make us see the whales with a new look.
Do the male whales learn new songs to impress female whales ? Scientists have no clue. Why the male whales sing still remains a mystery?
It is known that humans and whales have a lot of commonality, both being mammals that give live birth to their young, feed their young milk and are among the most social and affectionate animals that cuddle and caress.
Whales also have their behaviors and languages which distinguish their culture as we humans.
They make “clicks”, “whistles” and other sounds with their mouths to communicate.
A humpback whale makes sounds like songs which are long and complex rhythmic vocalizations.Every male sings the same song, but the songs themselves are different in different groups of whales around the world.
Besides the songs there are the usual call sounds which are short and are consistent in almost all whales in all parts of the world and large number of them have been documented.
Scientists have yet to find out the exact function of the calls and the songs though it must be some form of communication,
Interestingly Cornell University researcher Michelle Fournet investigated a call. She claims that this call ‘whup’ seems to be a “greeting” and when played near a whale , the whale responded to the greeting.
Scientists have been recording songs and calls of whales and playing back underwater hoping to start a “conversation” with the whales.
Whales particularly males are known to “sing” which has always been fascinating to scientists more so because there is no credible scientific reason as to why they should do so.
No wonder there are many speculative theories and studies done to find out the reason for whale songs.
University of Queensland researchers have found that Humpback whales known to sing complex song at times suddenly change it to simpler song. As if a new kind of fashion or a cultural revolution has taken over.
The University has studied the structure and complexity of songs sung by the eastern Australian humpback whale population for more than a decade and found that the same song gradually changes with individuals adding or deleting parts of the song like we see in many literary works over time undergo change when being transcribed from generation to generation.
Individual whales may be trying to stand out against their peers by adding their own little flourishes.
As a recent study shows a full scale cultural exchange also takes place which is rare in the animal world.
This study led by University of Queensland
found that New Caledonian humpback whales from one part of Australia learnt complex songs from the whales in another part of Australia.
According to scientists involved in the study this really indicates a high level of ‘cultural transmission’ observed in a non-human species.
The study was done of the song patterns of male humpback whales from each region between 2009 and 2015, to examine how culture transmits between the populations.
The number of sounds the whales made and the length of the sound patterns were all measured and studied to find out the complexity of the songs.
The scientists say “We found they actually learned the exact sounds, without simplifying or leaving anything out”.
The scientists found that whales had learnt one song the first year and learnt another new song the next year demonstrating their capacity to learn different and difficult songs pretty fast from another group of whales.
The New Caledonian humpback whales migratory pathway passes along Australia’s east coast as they head to Antarctic waters to feed during the winter months, the same feeding ground for pods of Australian whales.
Scientists feel that even though the whales reside in different parts of Australia they swim together while going to their feeding ground in Antarctica.
Perhaps during their little time for interaction one group transmitted their new songs to the other.
Humpback whales learn songs in segments like we learn poems one verse at a time.
The songs are thus part of socially learned behaviour of whales passed on from one whale to another unlike many behavioural patterns of animals which are inherited.
Scientists feel that changes in humpback whale songs were one of the most striking examples of the transmission of a cultural trait and social learning in any non-human animal.
The recent study by School of Veterinary Science Science, University of Queensland, Australia said that it is extremely “rare” for this degree of cultural exchange to be documented on such a large scale in a non-human specie like whales .
Whales which may weigh from than 20,000 kilos-30,000 kilos not only have a wide acoustic range, their sounds or songs which they make can carry for hundreds of kilometers in water where sound travels four times faster than on land.
Whats more a whale can sustain its full throated singing for more than 20 hours at a time.
Regular monitoring of the evolution and spread of whale songs shows that it plays a critical role in connecting and maintaining relationships among whales worldwide. An “acoustic” community about which we are slowly getting to know.
All humpback whales make social calls from a young age and we can recognize the vocalisations made by whales.
Singing carried out with high and low frequency seems primarily by the males but scientists do not as yet know the purpose of singing in their social life though many theories abound like a competition between males, a call to females, communicating messages.
The songs are very complex with specific vocalizations forming phrases which are repeated again and again to form a particular theme. It is these phrases and themes which can be seen in the variety of songs of the whales .
New songs are immediately listened to and picked up leading to a change and evolution of old songs.
Actually being underwater acoustics plays an important role and whales can know the presence of each other not so much by sight but by sounds of each other. If you keep mum, you are virtually not there as far as the soundscape of the whale is concerned.
Even though we know whales sing , the biological mechanisms humpbacks use to produce their vocalisations is not fully clear as yet.
Scientists feel they produce sound by “moving air between various sinus cavities in their skull and across something called ‘phonic lips’ or ‘vocal folds’.”
“A song that does not follow the most recent trends might be viewed as passé by females, so singers would need to keep current to compete.”
There is a theory that mature male whales use songs to lure females but then of course new songs are naturally supposed to be more attractive to females. No wonder males learn the new trendy songs fast and on the go.
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