Page 95 - World of Animals - Book of Sharks & Ocean Predators

Humpback whales
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How do whales talk?

Humpbacks use a variety of methods to get in touch with one another, including body
language, as well as a range of clicks, grunts and whistles

Breaching on the surface
Whales may breach to show
dominance or for fun. The
breach’s intense sound could
communicate the location
and size of the whale.

Whale body language
The singing stance Gestures such as tail slaps
Males o en adopt this stance or lunging are also methods
to sing. They hang in the water whereby males can show off
with their heads down, tails bent during the mating season.
and flippers out to the sides.

Other vocal noises
Aside from singing,
humpbacks are known to
vocalise socially with other
noises, including whoops,
barks, grunts and groans.

The song of the humpback
Singing o en happens when
males reach breeding grounds. It
may be to entice females, display
dominance, or contact others.
Potential echolocation noises
Whales feeding at night have been
seen making low clicks and buzzes,
similar to noises made by toothed
whales during echolocation.

sing for a period of time and it seems that at the end of But how does this happen? Dr Garland and her team
that singing it’s the males that will find one another and have figured out at least a few answers: “Usually the song
make contact. The song is so melodic and it’s so eerie. It’s contains some older material from the previous year and
beautiful and it seems peaceful in some respects. There then some exciting new stuff,” she begins. “It would be like
aren’t a lot of physical altercations between these males splicing an old Beatles song with U2. Occasionally they
once they find one another. The actual activity of mating is start singing a brand-new song. So in essence all males BELOW Humpback whales will o en
physical, but that’s not where the songs are happening.” sing the same thing at the same time but what they sing gather together in numbers wherever
food is plentiful
The males that sing these beautiful harmonies will hang changes either to a completely new song…”
in the water column, with their heads down and flippers
out, repeating phrases and stringing them together into
recognisable patterns that form the songs for up to
hours at a time. “What is interesting is that the males
in a population all sing the same song as one another,
but the pattern of the song changes with time,” explains
Dr Garland. “All the males make the same changes, so
they keep singing the same pattern as one another even
though that pattern is changing. We think of it as a cultural
trait rather than something that’s genetic.”
This discovery of a culture within humpback populations
was made by a team including Dr Garland. They studied
the songs recorded from six neighbouring humpback
populations from across the south-western Pacific ocean,
for over a decade. She made some fascinating findings.
“We found songs moved eastwards from one population
to the next,” Dr Garland says. “The movement was like a
series of cultural ripples spreading across the region.”

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