University of Hawaii: Humpback whales swim to create 'nets'
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Their shrill wails, deep growls and other-worldly moans are some of the ocean’s most iconic sounds. But Humpback whales’ unique method of communication may be even more mysterious than first thought, after a study concluded their songs are not learned from others.
A new University at Buffalo (UB) study has contradicted the widely-accepted cultural transmission theory that whales learn their songs from each other.
The idea that humpback whales are a distinguished part of the animal kingdom because of their ability to culturally learn songs is apparently not true
Professor Eduardo Mercado
Eduardo Mercado, a professor of psychology in UB’s College of Arts and Sciences, said: “It seems like that is not correct
“Our findings indicate that neither cultural transmission nor social learning contributes significantly to how humpback whales change their songs over time.
“I think the results are provocative and will probably make other whale researchers livid or dismissive, but at least the discussion won’t be boring!”
Convention claims humpback populations isolated from one another do not adapt their songs to others.
Instead, each population is apparently original, taking their songs in original directions.
However, Professor Mercado claims ”these things are not true.”
He said: ”I compare songs over 40 years and compare populations that have never been in contact with one another, and they’re doing basically the same thing.”
The study examined whale songs from groups of humpbacks not in acoustic contact with each other, while still creating acoustically-comparable songs.
And while the results defied exceptions, the whale researcher thinks his conclusions make the mammals all the more impressive.
He said: “The idea that humpback whales are a distinguished part of the animal kingdom because of their ability to culturally learn songs is apparently not true.
“But to me, what the whales are doing is actually more impressive. Cultural transmission implies that what’s heard is copied.
“That means it doesn’t matter what is heard or what is copied. But what we found is very specific and precise, without a trace of arbitrary vocalisation.
“The songs change over time in a fashion that’s even more precise than what humans do when language develops.”
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He added club DJs may be an apt metaphor for how whale songs are chosen.
Professor Mercado said: ”DJs can’t just randomly go from one song to the next.
“They have to think about beat matching, tempo and mood in order to maintain a continuous flow.
“I think that might be true of the whales. When they make changes, they do so in relation to what preceded it.
“They’re basically beat matching when they change songs — and we found similarities in populations that had no social contact or genetic links.”
The researcher believes the hitherto-popular cultural transmission theory’s main attraction was the difficulty in imagining what other mechanism may be responsible
A problem with this approach may lie in the fact that past studies have used subjectively-defined categories.
And as a result, subsequent analysis would depend on how well the categories captured the intricacies of the song.
Professor Mercado, therefore deliberately selected published records of data, to avoid any suggestion of confirmation bias.
He said: “I didn’t categorise things at all and used purely acoustic measurements.
“This paper is based on direct measurements of sound features without any categorisation or subjective labelling.”
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