While recently on the topic of bird songs I thought I would talk about another animal that communicates through song. However this animal is much larger in size then birds. I’m referring to Humpback whales that communicate through complex songs. Males sing these songs in hopes of attracting females. These beautiful songs are a type of ‘flirting” for the whales. These songs can last up to 30 minutes and are usually split up into small parts of about two to four minutes called themes. Whales often repeat these half hour songs over and over for many hours and sometimes even days. Scientists have discovered that these songs are geographically specific because whales of the same area will often sing variations of different songs whereas whales from distant regions sing entirely different songs. Whales also use songs when hunting to communicate with one another when chasing schools of fish and trapping them. As well as communicating through songs whales communicate through body language and gestures. In order to impress a female, a male will try a variety of techniques including breaching, slapping their tail or flippers and charging. These can be used for feeding as well.
I thought it was fascinating that these large mammals adapted song to there marine environment like birds do in there environment in air.
This is a very cool topic. To have such a small and large creature both share song as a form of communication. I wonder if there are any universal songs that all whales share in common or if there songs are all different based on there area. I also wonder if the depth of water they are in when they sing influences the frequency of there song at all. Those would be some interesting areas to look into for whale song.
ReplyDeletePosted by Noelle Kellicker
I have heard that many marine mammals need to depend on sound because the other senses are not strong under water. It would be interesting to study how humans have impacted the use of song. Just as we talked about how human noises need to be tuned out by birds by using certain frequencies I wonder if Humpbacks are affected by the increasing amount of ambient noises created by ships and sonars. I feel like we focus a lot more on species that are on land, but it would be nice to see more studies on marine life!
ReplyDeletePosted by Caitlin Descovich O'Hare
I find this article very interesting because in my ichthyology (study of fish) class we were just talking about how fish communication.Marine animals must adjust their form of communication to accommodate their environment.Many fish contort their structures such as fins or gas bladders to make particular sounds or calls. I wonder if this same phenomenon is also witnessed in whales?
ReplyDeletePosted by Nick Gast
Did you know that when the male humpback sings, his head is facing down and that his body is completely still?
ReplyDeleteI watched an episode of National Geographic that highlighted marine mammals. When the male sings his is completely frozen while pointing his body down. Their song is also at such a low frequency that it can be heard for miles, just like lions.
I want to study whales when I am older so when I saw your post I became excited. Thanks. =)
Posted by Em Arsenault
Neat article. I'd heard about whales using songs for mating. As they have unique songs by area, I think it'd be interesting to see how a male transported to a new area would do during mating courtship. Would the male use his area-specific song or adapt to the new area's song?
ReplyDeletePosted by Austin Gray
Being an animal enthusiast, I knew that whales sing songs and communicate at different frequencies than us. What I did not realize was that That these signals would last for so long. I just wonder the evolutionary effect of having the whale sing for such a long time. I wonder how far whales tend to be located from one another. In general, do whales tend to live within a 50 mile radius or closer? I wonder if they sing for a whole day in hopes another whale passing by will hear their song. I know that sound travels 3x faster in water, but does the sound get degraded more quickly than in air?
ReplyDeletePosted By Caroline Adams
Great post. Just like in class, I found it very interesting that just like birds and other animals, whales have songs but on a much larger scale. It fascinates me also that these whales produce much larger sounds in time interval and frequency wise. It also caught my interest when you stated that these whales, based on their geographic location, have different songs and also have different versions of the same song. Do you know if the whales that are from a different geographic location can understand and interpret the other calls of the distant whales? Also, can the whale learn a different song if it was raised in a separate location, than it would have if it was raised in the same location when it was born?
ReplyDeletePosted by Ryan Dulmaine