Whale
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...
s use a variety of sounds for
communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
and sensation. The mechanisms used to produce sound vary from one family of
cetaceans
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel them ...
to another.
Marine mammal
Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reli ...
s, including whales,
dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...
s, and
porpoise
Porpoises are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals, all of which are classified under the family Phocoenidae, parvorder Odontoceti (toothed whales). Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals an ...
s, are much more dependent on sound than land mammals due to the limited effectiveness of other senses in water.
Sight
Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding Biophysical environment, environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the ...
is less effective for marine mammals because of the particulate way in which the ocean scatters
light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...
.
Smell is also limited, as
molecule
A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioch ...
s diffuse more slowly in water than in air, which makes smelling less effective. However, the
speed of sound
The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit of time by a sound wave as it propagates through an elastic medium. At , the speed of sound in air is about , or one kilometre in or one mile in . It depends strongly on temperature as w ...
is roughly four times greater in water than in the atmosphere at
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...
. As sea mammals are so dependent on hearing to communicate and feed, environmentalists and
cetologists
Cetology (from Greek , ''kētos'', "whale"; and , ''-logia'') or whalelore (also known as whaleology) is the branch of marine mammal science that studies the approximately eighty species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises in the scientific order ...
are concerned that they are being harmed by the increased
ambient noise
Background noise or ambient noise is any sound other than the sound being monitored (primary sound). Background noise is a form of noise pollution or interference. Background noise is an important concept in setting noise levels.
Background no ...
in the world's oceans caused by
ship
A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...
s,
sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...
and marine seismic surveys.
The word "
song
A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...
" is used to describe the pattern of regular and predictable sounds made by some species of whales, notably the
humpback whale
The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hump ...
. This is included with or in comparison with
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
, and male humpback whales have been described as "inveterate
composers
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Classical music, Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
E ...
" of songs that are "'strikingly similar' to human musical traditions". It has been suggested that humpback songs communicate male fitness to female whales. The click sounds made by
sperm whale
The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the sperm whale famil ...
s and dolphins are not strictly song, but the clicking sequences have been suggested to be individualized rhythmic sequences that communicate the identity of a single whale to other whales in its group. These clicking sequences reportedly allow the groups to coordinate foraging activities.
Production of sound
Humans
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
produce
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
sounds by passing air through the
larynx
The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...
. Within the larynx, when the
vocal cords
In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speech ...
are brought close together, the passing air will force them to alternately close and open, separating the continuous airstream into discrete pulses of air that are heard as a vibration. This vibration is further modified by
speech organs
The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics that studies articulation and ways that humans produce speech. Articulatory phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological struct ...
in the
oral
The word oral may refer to:
Relating to the mouth
* Relating to the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that primarily receives food and liquid
**Oral administration of medicines
** Oral examination (also known as an oral exam or oral ...
and
nasal cavities, creating sounds which are used in
human speech
Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if they are th ...
.
Cetacean sound production differs markedly from this mechanism. The precise mechanism differs in the two major suborders of cetaceans: the ''Odontoceti'' (
toothed whales
The toothed whales (also called odontocetes, systematic name Odontoceti) are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales possessing teeth, such as the beaked whales and sperm whales. Seventy-three species of t ...
, including dolphins) and the ''Mysticeti'' (
baleen whale
Baleen whales (systematic name Mysticeti), also known as whalebone whales, are a parvorder of carnivorous marine mammals of the infraorder Cetacea (whales, dolphins and porpoises) which use keratinaceous baleen plates (or "whalebone") in their ...
s, including the largest whales such as the
blue whale
The blue whale (''Balaenoptera musculus'') is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known to have ever existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can ...
).
Odontocete whales
![Delfinekko](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Delfinekko.gif)
Odontocetes produce rapid bursts of high-frequency clicks that are thought to be primarily for
echolocation. Specialized organs in an odontocete produce collections of clicks and buzzes at frequencies from 0.2 to 150 kHz to obtain sonic information about its environment. Lower frequencies are used for distance echolocation, due to the fact that shorter wavelengths do not travel as far as longer wavelengths underwater. Higher frequencies are more effective at shorter distances, and can reveal more detailed information about a target. Echoes from clicks convey not only the distance to the target, but also the size, shape, speed, and vector of its movement. Additionally, echolocation allows the odontocete to easily discern the difference between objects that are different in material composition, even if visually identical, by their different densities. Individuals also appear to be able to isolate their own echoes during pod feeding activity without interference from other pod members' echolocations.
Whistles are used for communication, and four- to six-month-old calves develop unique sounds that they use most frequently throughout their lives. Such "signature whistles" are distinctive to the individual and may serve as a form of identification among other odontocetes.
Though a large pod of dolphins will produce a wide range of different noises, very little is known about the meaning of the sound. Frankel quotes one researcher who says listening to a school of odontocetes is like listening to a group of children at a school playground.
[Frankel, Adam S. "Sound production", ''Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals'', 1998, pp. 1126–1137. .]
The multiple sounds odontocetes make are produced by passing air through a structure in the head called the phonic lips.
The structure is analogous to the human nasal cavity, but the phonic lips act similarly to human
vocal cords
In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speech ...
, which in humans are located in the
larynx
The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...
. As the air passes through this narrow passage, the phonic lip membranes are sucked together, causing the surrounding tissue to vibrate. These vibrations can, as with the vibrations in the human larynx, be consciously controlled with great sensitivity.
The vibrations pass through the tissue of the head to the
melon
A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a "pepo". The ...
, which shapes and directs the sound into a beam of sound useful in echolocation. Every toothed whale except the
sperm whale
The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the sperm whale famil ...
has two sets of phonic lips and is thus capable of making two sounds independently. Once the air has passed the phonic lips it enters the
vestibular sac. From there, the air may be recycled back into the lower part of the nasal complex, ready to be used for sound creation again, or passed out through the blowhole.
The
French name for phonic lips, ''museau de singe'', translates literally as "monkey's muzzle", which the phonic lip structure is supposed to resemble. New cranial analysis using
computed axial and
single photon emission computed tomography
Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT, or less commonly, SPET) is a nuclear medicine tomographic imaging technique using gamma rays. It is very similar to conventional nuclear medicine planar imaging using a gamma camera (that is, ...
scans in 2004 showed, at least in the case of
bottlenose dolphin
Bottlenose dolphins are aquatic mammals in the genus ''Tursiops.'' They are common, cosmopolitan members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Molecular studies show the genus definitively contains two species: the common ...
s, that air might be supplied to the nasal complex from the lungs by the palatopharyngeal sphincter, enabling the sound creation process to continue for as long as the dolphin is able to hold its breath.
Mysticete whales
Baleen whale
Baleen whales (systematic name Mysticeti), also known as whalebone whales, are a parvorder of carnivorous marine mammals of the infraorder Cetacea (whales, dolphins and porpoises) which use keratinaceous baleen plates (or "whalebone") in their ...
s (formally called mysticetes) do not have phonic lip structure. Instead, they have a larynx that appears to play a role in sound production, but it lacks vocal cords, and scientists remain uncertain as to the exact mechanism. The process, however, cannot be completely analogous to humans, because whales do not have to exhale in order to produce sound. It is likely that they recycle air around the body for this purpose. Cranial sinuses may also be used to create the sounds, but again, researchers are currently unsure how.
Vocal plasticity and acoustic behavior
There are at least nine separate blue whale acoustic populations worldwide. Over the last 50 years blue whales have changed the way they are singing. Calls are progressively getting lower in frequency. For example, the Australian pygmy blue whales are decreasing their mean call frequency rate at approximately 0.35 Hz/year.
The migration patterns of blue whales remains unclear. Some populations appear to be resident in habitats of year-round high productivity in some years, while others undertake long migrations to high-latitude feeding grounds, but the extent of migrations and the components of the populations that undertake them are poorly known.
Sound levels
The frequency of baleen whale sounds ranges from 10
Hz to 31 kHz.
A list of typical levels is shown in the table below.
Purpose of whale-created sounds
While the complex sounds of the humpback whale (and some blue whales) are believed to be primarily used in
sexual selection
Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection in which members of one biological sex mate choice, choose mates of the other sex to mating, mate with (intersexual selection), and compete with members of the same sex for access to members of t ...
, there are simpler sounds that are created by other species of whales that have an alternative use and are used all year round. Whale watchers have watched mother whales lift their young towards the surface in a playful motion, while making a noise that resembles cooing in humans.
This cooing-like noise made by whales seems designed to relax their young
and is one of several distinct everyday noises whales are known to make. Unlike some fish such as sharks and dolphins, a toothed whale's sense of smell is absent, causing them to rely heavily on echolocation, both for hunting prey and for navigating the ocean under darkness. This requires the whales to produce noise year round to ensure they are able to navigate around any obstacles they may face such as sunken ships or other animals.
It has also been proven that whales are extremely social creatures. The noises that are made throughout the entire year (the main sounds being whistles, clicks, and pulsed calls) are used to communicate with other members of their pod.
Each sound a whale makes could mean something different. The clicking noises whales make are used for navigation
.
The question of whether whales sometimes sing purely for
aesthetic
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...
enjoyment, personal satisfaction, or 'for art's sake', is considered by some to be "an untestable question".
Song of the humpback whale
Two groups of whales, the humpback whale and the subspecies of blue whale found in the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
, are known to produce a series of repetitious sounds at varying frequencies known as whale song. Marine biologist Philip Clapham describes the song as "probably the most complex in the animal kingdom."
Male humpback whales perform these vocalizations often during the mating season, and so it is believed the purpose of songs is to aid mate selection.
[
Interest in whale song was aroused by researchers ]Roger Payne
Roger Searle Payne (born January 29, 1935) is an American biologist and environmentalist famous for the 1967 discovery (with Scott McVay) of whale song among humpback whales. Payne later became an important figure in the worldwide campaign to e ...
and Scott McVay after the songs were brought to their attention by a Bermudian named Frank Watlington who was working for the US government at the SOFAR station listening for Russian submarines with underwater hydrophones
A hydrophone ( grc, ὕδωρ + φωνή, , water + sound) is a microphone designed to be used underwater for recording or listening to underwater sound. Most hydrophones are based on a piezoelectric transducer that generates an electric potenti ...
off the coast of the island. Payne released the best-selling '' Songs of the Humpback Whale'' in 1970, and the whale songs were quickly incorporated into human music by, among others, singer Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her ec ...
.
The songs follow a distinct hierarchical structure. The base units of the song (sometimes loosely called the "notes
Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to:
Music and entertainment
* Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music
* Notes (album), ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian
* ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) sho ...
") are single uninterrupted emissions of sound that last up to a few seconds. These sounds vary in frequency from 20 Hz to upward of 24 kHz (the typical human range of hearing is 20 Hz to 20 kHz). The units may be frequency modulated
Frequency modulation (FM) is the encoding of information in a carrier wave by varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave. The technology is used in telecommunications, radio broadcasting, signal processing, and computing.
In analog freque ...
(i.e., the pitch of the sound may go up, down, or stay the same during the note) or amplitude modulated
Amplitude modulation (AM) is a modulation technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting messages with a radio wave. In amplitude modulation, the amplitude (signal strength) of the wave is varied in proportion to t ...
(get louder or quieter). However, the adjustment of bandwidth on a spectrogram representation of the song reveals the essentially pulsed nature of the FM sounds.
A collection of four or six units is known as a sub-phrase
In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
, lasting perhaps ten seconds (see also phrase (music)
In music theory, a phrase ( gr, φράση) is a unit of musical meter that has a complete musical sense of its own, built from figures, motifs, and cells, and combining to form melodies, periods and larger sections.
Terms such as ''senten ...
).[ A collection of two sub-phrases is a phrase. A whale will typically repeat the same phrase over and over for two to four minutes. This is known as a theme. A collection of themes is known as a song.][ The whale song will last up to 30 or so minutes, and will be repeated over and over again over the course of hours or even days.][ This "]Russian doll
Matryoshka dolls ( ; rus, матрёшка, p=mɐˈtrʲɵʂkə, a=Ru-матрёшка.ogg), also known as stacking dolls, nesting dolls, Russian tea dolls, or Russian dolls, are a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside ano ...
" hierarchy of sounds suggests a syntactic structure that is more human-like in its complexity than other forms of animal communication like bird songs, which have only linear structure.
All the whales in an area sing virtually the same song at any point in time and the song is constantly and slowly evolving over time. For example, over the course of a month a particular unit that started as an upsweep (increasing in frequency) might slowly flatten to become a constant note.[ Another unit may get steadily louder. The pace of evolution of a whale's song also changes—some years the song may change quite rapidly, whereas in other years little variation may be recorded.][
]
Whales occupying the same geographical areas (which can be as large as entire ocean basins) tend to sing similar songs, with only slight variations. Whales from non-overlapping regions sing entirely different songs.[
As the song evolves, it appears that old patterns are not revisited.][ An analysis of 19 years of whale songs found that while general patterns in song could be spotted, the same combination never recurred.
Humpback whales may also make stand-alone sounds that do not form part of a song, particularly during courtship rituals.] Finally, humpbacks make a third class of sound called the feeding call. This is a long sound (5 to 10 s duration) of near constant frequency. Humpbacks generally feed cooperatively by gathering in groups, swimming underneath shoals of fish and all lunging up vertically through the fish and out of the water together. Prior to these lunges, whales make their feeding call. The exact purpose of the call is not known.
Some scientists have proposed that humpback whale songs may serve an echolocative purpose, but this has been subject to disagreement.
Other whale sounds
Humpback whales have also been found to make a range of other social sounds to communicate such as "grunts", "groans", "thwops", "snorts" and "barks".
In 2009, researchers found that blue whale
The blue whale (''Balaenoptera musculus'') is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known to have ever existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can ...
song has been deepening in its tonal frequency since the 1960s. While noise pollution
Noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise with ranging impacts on the activity of human or animal life, most of them are harmful to a degree. The source of outdoor noise worldwide is main ...
has increased ambient ocean noise by over 12 decibels since the mid-20th century, researcher Mark McDonald indicated that higher pitches would be expected if the whales were straining to be heard.
Killer whales have been observed to produce long range calls that are stereotyped and high frequency travelling distances from as well as short range calls that can travel distances from . Short range calls are reported during social and resting periods while long range are more commonly reported during foraging and feeding.
Most other whales and dolphins produce sounds of varying degrees of complexity. Of particular interest is the Beluga The beluga whale (/bɪˈluːɡə/) (Delphinapterus leucas) is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus Delphinapterus. It is also known as the wh ...
(the "sea canary") which produces an immense variety of whistles, clicks and pulses.
Research in Whale Vocalization
It was previously thought that most baleen whales make sounds at about 15–20 hertz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that on ...
. However, a team of marine biologists
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifie ...
, led by Mary Ann Daher of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering.
Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it i ...
, reported in ''New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...
'' in December 2004 that they had been tracking a whale in the North Pacific for 12 years that was "singing" at 52 Hz. Scientists have been unable to explain this phenomenon. 52 Hz is a very low sound, it is audible through human ears as a low moaning sound. It was not expected that this whale was a new species, more so this whale indicated that a currently known species potentially has a much wider vocal range than previously thought. There is disagreement in the scientific community regarding the uniqueness of the whale's vocalization and whether it is a member of a hybrid whale such as the well documented blue and fin whale hybrids.
Human interaction
Researchers use hydrophone
A hydrophone ( grc, ὕδωρ + φωνή, , water + sound) is a microphone designed to be used underwater for recording or listening to underwater sound. Most hydrophones are based on a piezoelectric transducer that generates an electric potenti ...
s (often adapted from their original military use in tracking submarines) to ascertain the exact location of the origin of whale noises. Their methods also allow them to detect how far through an ocean a sound travels. Research by Dr. Christopher Clark of Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
conducted using military data showed that whale noises travel for thousands of kilometres. As well as providing information about song production, the data allows researchers to follow the migratory path of whales throughout the "singing" (mating) season. An important finding is that whales, in a process called the Lombard effect
250 px, noise_pollution.html"_;"title="Great_tits_sing_at_a_higher_frequency_in_noise_pollution">noise_polluted_urban_surroundings_than_quieter_ones_to_help_overcome_the_auditory_masking_that_would_otherwise_impair_other_birds_hearing_their_bird_ ...
, adjust their song to compensate for background noise pollution
Noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise with ranging impacts on the activity of human or animal life, most of them are harmful to a degree. The source of outdoor noise worldwide is main ...
. Moreover, there is evidence that blue whales stop producing foraging D calls once a mid-frequency sonar is activated, even though the sonar frequency range (1–8 kHz) far exceeds their sound production range (25–100 Hz).
Prior to the introduction of human noise production, Clark says the noises may have travelled right from one side of an ocean to the other, agreeing with a thirty-year-old concept blaming large-scale shipping.[ His research indicates that ambient noise from boats is doubling with each decade.][ This has the effect of reducing the range at which whale noises can be heard. ]Environmentalist
An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...
s fear that such boat activity is putting undue stress on the animals as well as making it difficult to find a mate.[
In the past decade, many effective automated methods, such as signal processing, data mining, and machine learning techniques have been developed to detect and classify whale vocalizations.][7. M. Popescu, P. Dugan, M. Pourhomayoun, and C. Clark, "Periodic Pulse Train Signal Detection and Classification using Spectrogram Intensity Binarization and Energy Projection," International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2013.]
Media
left, Humpback Whales and Dolphins calling.
Selected discography
* '' Songs of the Humpback Whale'' (SWR 118) was originally released in 1970 by CRM Records from recordings made by Roger Payne
Roger Searle Payne (born January 29, 1935) is an American biologist and environmentalist famous for the 1967 discovery (with Scott McVay) of whale song among humpback whales. Payne later became an important figure in the worldwide campaign to e ...
, Frank Watlington, and others. The LP was later re-released by Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
, published in a flexible format in the National Geographic Society magazine, Volume 155, Number 1, in January 1979, re-released by Living Music/Windham Hill/BMG Records on CD in 1992, and remastered on CD by BGO-Beat Goes On in 2001.
* ''Deep Voices: The Second Whale Record'' (Capitol/EMI Records 0777 7 11598 1 0) was released on LP in 1977 from additional recordings made by Roger Payne
Roger Searle Payne (born January 29, 1935) is an American biologist and environmentalist famous for the 1967 discovery (with Scott McVay) of whale song among humpback whales. Payne later became an important figure in the worldwide campaign to e ...
, and re-released on CD in 1995 by Living Music/Windham Hill/BMG Records. It includes recordings of humpbacks, blues, and rights.
* ''Northern Whales'' (MGE 19) was released by Music Gallery Editions from recordings made by Pierre Ouellet, John Ford, and others affiliated with Interspecies Music and Communication Research. It includes recordings of belugas, narwhals, orca, and bearded seals.
* ''Sounds of the Earth: Humpback Whales'' (Oreade Music) was released on CD in 1999.
* ''Rapture of the Deep: Humpback Whale Singing'' (Compass Recordings) was released on CD in 2001.
Songlines: Songs of the East Australian Humpback whales.
was released in 2009.
History
Whaling Captain Wm. H. Kelly was the first person known to recognize whale singing for what it was, while on the brig ''Eliza'' in the Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...
in 1881.
See also
* 52-hertz whale
*Bioacoustics
Bioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion and reception in animals (including humans). This involves neurophysiological and anatomical b ...
*Biomusic
Biomusic is a form of experimental music which deals with Natural sounds, sounds created or performed by non-humans. The definition is also sometimes extended to include sounds made by humans in a directly biological way. For instance, music that ...
*Underwater acoustics
Underwater acoustics is the study of the propagation of sound in water and the interaction of the mechanical waves that constitute sound with the water, its contents and its boundaries. The water may be in the ocean, a lake, a river or a tank. Typ ...
*Vocal learning Vocal learning is the ability to modify acoustic and syntactic sounds, acquire new sounds via imitation, and produce vocalizations. "Vocalizations" in this case refers only to sounds generated by the vocal organ (mammalian larynx or avian Syrinx (bi ...
References
General references
*''Lone whale's song remains a mystery'', ''New Scientist'', issue number 2477, 11 December 2004
*
* Helweg, D.A., Frankel, A.S., Mobley Jr, J.R. and Herman, L.M., "Humpback whale song: our current understanding," in ''Marine Mammal Sensory Systems'', J. A. Thomas, R. A. Kastelein, and A. Y. Supin, Eds. New York: Plenum, 1992, pp. 459–483.
*''In search of impulse sound sources in odontocetes'' by Ted Cranford in ''Hearing by whales and dolphins'' (W. Lu, A. Popper and R. Fays eds.). Springer-Verlag (2000).
*''Progressive changes in the songs of humpback whales (''Megaptera novaeangliae''): a detailed analysis of two seasons in Hawaii'' by K.B.Payne, P. Tyack and R.S. Payne in ''Communication and behavior of whales''. Westview Press (1983)
*
External links
Voices in the Sea
has whale and dolphin sounds and interpretive videos
Cornell University's Bioacoustics Research Program
Right Whale Listening Network
a project of the above bioacoustics program at Cornell
has FLAC files made from high-quality LP transcriptions.
Perspectives in Ocean Science
Listening to Whales, John Hildebrand, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
The British Library Sound Archive
contains over 150,000 recordings of animal sounds and natural atmospheres from around the world.
Songlines: Songs of the East Australian Humpback whales.
Recording of the bearded seal's "spiralling trill," one of the most phenomenal vocalizations of the underwater kingdom
Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and New Bedford Whaling Museum
{{Zoomusicology
Animal intelligence
Articles containing video clips
Song forms
Whale sounds