What is the sound of whales called? Secrets of the ocean depths: cetacean communication. Blue whales are monogamous

It turns out that humpback whales “communicate” in a language that has a clear grammatical structure. According to researchers, whales do not operate with abstract concepts, but in terms of their complexity “speech” is not inferior to human.

To study the complex sequence of sounds made by humpback whales, Dr. Ruji Suzuki, together with colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developed a computer program. Scientists analyzed audio recordings of 16 whale songs lasting from 6 to 30 minutes. The study took into account the frequency of repetition of individual “words” and “phrases” and their location in the overall “sentence.”

Analysis of audio recordings has demonstrated the presence of hierarchical syntax in the language of humpback whales. Until now, it was believed that hierarchical grammatical structure is present only in human speech: words are combined into phrases, phrases into sentences.

Interestingly, the short songs of whales are much more complex and rich than the long ones. However, according to scientists, it will not be possible to decipher the language of whales any time soon. But if the researchers are successful, perhaps humanity will know why do whales wash ashore.

And this is becoming a common occurrence. Just since the beginning of 2006, more whales have stranded and died than in previous years. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is the impact of sonar devices (sound radars) of ships on the natural navigation systems of animals.

Mark Simmonds, head of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (UK), said that whales have been making frequent navigational errors lately. Whales have begun to enter the North Sea, where the depth does not exceed 45 meters, which poses a danger for them, since their perception systems are designed for greater depths.

Whale navigation system works on the principle of emission of sounds that move through the water column and are reflected from objects. The faster the sound returns, the closer the object is. If the operation of these whale systems is strongly influenced by the sonar of sea vessels, then the whales' sense of danger is dulled.

Dr Peter Evans, director of the Marine Observation Foundation, said recent tests of the dead whales' organs showed the presence of air bubbles in the animals' livers and kidneys. This means that the whales were surfacing too quickly from great depths. In addition, hemorrhages were found in the whales' sensitive echo-location organs, which is the result of acoustic trauma.

In 2002, after testing sonar equipment in the Canary Islands, 14 whales washed ashore. Tests showed that they all died from decompression resulting from ascent too quickly.

Meanwhile, a group of researchers from the University of Queensland (UK) has received scientific evidence that male whales devote entire hours to “singing” to attract a mate.

Scientists spent three years tracking and recording all the sounds made by whales during the migration season on the British coast. It turned out that the average duration of a whale serenade is 23 hours. And these songs, which are more reminiscent of chirping and bird chirping, really help achieve mutual understanding with the opposite sex. Another purpose of whale songs is to scare away other males.

By the way, whales, dolphins and bats not the only creatures on earth, capable of communicating using ultrasonic signals. American biologist Craig Adler learned about this while studying rare species of frogs in China.

He passed the information on to Professor Albert Feng of the University of Illinois, who continued his research to find out what processes in the brain allow animals to use this type of communication.

Feng and his colleagues report that male frogs produced sounds higher than 128 kilohertz, the limit of their equipment.

Scientists played the recorded voices of frogs in the audio and ultrasonic ranges and monitored their reactions. It turned out that six out of eight animals responded to the ultrasonic component. However, this still indicates that they have the ability to perceive sounds in this range.

Life in the ocean is different from life on land. Dive underwater and try to smell an orange or see something more than a meter away from you. Animals that live in water must have developed special ways of perceiving the world, different from sight and smell. One of these methods was sound. Whales have a whole range of sounds that they use both to communicate and find their way in the dark depths. But only certain species of whales “sing.”

Whales are divided into two groups depending on the way they feed: toothed whales and baleen whales.

Toothed whales are more aggressive. These include sperm whales, dolphins and killer whales. These whales feed like tigers in the jungle, hunting and pursuing prey (from small fish to octopuses and sea lions). They swallow everything they catch whole.

Outwardly, “more well-mannered” baleen whales feed by swimming through the water with their mouths open and sucking in small plants and animals along with the water. They filter water with planktonic mollusks, crustaceans and small fish through special horny plates. There are from 360 to 800 of them in the upper jaw, they are from 20 to 450 cm long and are called whalebone. The inner edge and top of each plate are split into thin and long bristles, forming a kind of thick sieve. Baleen whales include enormous blue whales and singing humpback whales.

The sea is dark in color even during the day, and many toothed whales travel and hunt at night. How do they do it? Just like a bat flying in the dead of night, some whales make sounds and then pick up their echoes. These sounds are similar to clicks or whistles. When a sound wave encounters an obstacle in its path, such as a rock or fish, it is reflected back.

Ordinary ears cannot help underwater. Sound waves are vibrations in the air that cause the eardrum to move. And the wave propagating in the water causes the entire skull to vibrate. Therefore, when whales returned to the ocean in ancient times, their now useless ear canals narrowed to the size of the eye of a needle. However, whales do have eardrums, but sound travels to them along a completely different route, passing from the jaw bone or forehead through a layer of fat to the eardrums.

In addition to clicking their jaws (which resemble a creaking door), toothed whales use whistles and trills to communicate. (The beluga whale, which is a toothed whale, produces so many trills that it is called the sea canary.) Whales also make sounds by striking their caudal fin (the two plates of their tail). In some whales, these sounds are so loud that they resemble the sound of a jackhammer.

Baleen whales click, chirp, and whistle, just like toothed whales. But they also make low-pitched moans. Humpback whales make similar sounds while chasing prey, and they can turn into a “song” and last more than an hour. Scientists call these "songs" because they have rhythm, structure, and repeated phrases (like choruses or refrains), and only humpback whales "sing."

Scientists who recorded and analyzed these “songs” say that if they were broken down into sounds and a language was made from these sounds, then some “songs” would contain information no less than a small book. Some sounds are too low for the human ear to hear, and others need to be played at a very slow tempo for us to understand them. The “song” itself is the same for whales from different parts of the ocean, but the number of phrases for each individual is individual. Whales change their “songs” depending on the season. No one knows why whales sing or what their “songs” mean. It has been suggested that the “songs” help males establish the boundaries of their possessions or are part of a mating ritual. But these are just human interpretations of a world of whales that we may not understand at all.

Lyell Weinberger

Serious research into the sounds made by animals in the underwater world began only in the 1940s. For the first time, thanks to an underwater microphone, researchers have studied in detail the clicks, whistles and songs of marine mammals. But the thorny question of what exactly they communicate to each other has kept scientists busy ever since.

Source and Copyright – Leighton Lum, www.500px.com

Effective communicators

The vocabulary of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) is simply stunning. A recently published scientific paper has attracted the attention of various publications, as scientists have discovered that dolphins use their whistles to call out the names of other dolphins, and may be able to name a third animal during a “conversation.”

The vocabulary of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) is simply stunning.

Unlike most land animals, the transmission of information during communication in whales and dolphins is more audible than visual. .This acoustic structure is simply ideal, because vision under water is extremely limited (visible sunlight penetrates only about 200 meters). Many fish do not communicate with each other using voice, but this does not mean that they have an unfortunate structure. The crux of the matter is that social aquatic animals rely on acoustic communication. Cetaceans are social animals and rely on their social structures for ecological survival, whereas most sharks, for example, are silent loners.

Powerful voices of giant creatures

Blue whales are especially amazing in this regard. They use deep, low-frequency sounds and are known for dominating low-frequency sound throughout the coast for many months. The sounds they make will include low-frequency “infrasounds” that humans cannot hear. Infrasounds travel over extremely long distances - biologists can determine the location of the whale making the sounds hundreds of kilometers away. Researchers believe these songs help whales navigate long distances by communicating with other whales and listening to echoes from the ocean floor, which helps them determine their geographic location.

Right whales are specialists in low-frequency sounds, while toothed whales are specialists in high-frequency sounds. Sperm whales emit high-frequency clicks, which has earned them the title of the loudest animal on earth. Almost a quarter of the sperm whale's body is occupied by the spermaceti organ,8 the main function of which is to focus and amplify loud clicks9 (the equivalent of such a sound on land is 170 decibels). What else this organ is used for is still largely unknown. Some scientists suggest that it is used as a ram in competitions with other whales. The click function is also still a matter of speculation! They may be used for echolocation (a kind of sonic location system that helps you "see" using echo sounds), but they may also have other functions.

Source and Copyright – Tony Rath, www.500px.com

Made for Vocal Learning

This poses a serious puzzle for evolutionists. Tiak continues his thought: “Most land animals do not seem to be able to modify their vocal repertoire based on what they hear. Some groups of marine mammals, whales and dolphins, have advanced vocal training skills.". The problem for evolutionists is that cetaceans are far behind humans, according to the "evolutionary tree" ("phylogenetic tree").

This means that vocal learning must have evolved independently on land and in water. In addition, evolutionists believe that cetaceans and seals were land dwellers who occasionally entered the water. This means that they had to independently of each other evolve, developing numerous adaptations for life in water, including a unique gift for learning vocals. This evolutionary scenario is becoming increasingly implausible.

The ability of whales to learn sounds is another example demonstrating that the unique characteristics of animals again and again transcend the boundaries of evolutionary phylogeny. Biblical evolutionists expect that animals created by the same Creator should have many similarities (a fortunate design feature can be used in different designs). Evolutionists often explain such circumstances by “convergent evolution” (in which evolution came up with the same solution twice, independently of each other). But in fact, this only masks the real situation: such cases are not evidence of evolution, but an anomalous fact that they try to justify with a superficial explanation. And such “anomalous facts” haunt all evolutionist theories about whales. And so the logical explanation is not convergent evolution, but the commonality of design created by the Divine Creator, "for by him all things were created"(Colossians 1:16).

Study of the structure

The explanations about the structure of whale communication systems are very intuitive. Even evolutionists who do not believe in a Creator have allowed the use of the word “creation” to slip into their writings on the topic. Peter Tiak notes that some researchers believe that signals transmitted over long distances are a “feature of creation.”

Creation-based explanations are not “an obstacle to the advancement of science,” as some evolutionists say. As creationists, we recognize that there is purpose and meaning in whale communication. We know that on the fifth day of Creation Week, God created whales ideally suited to their needs. Belief in the purpose and order of the universe became the driving force behind all science. As Johannes Kepler stated, “the secrets [of science] ... stand before our eyes like a mirror, and by explaining them, we are to some extent able to observe the goodness and wisdom of the Creator”. What could be more logical than studying the signals of whales to reveal the purposes for which the Creator created them? And since we creation scientists we are waiting Finding elements of design and intelligent design in whales is the most encouraging and meaningful incentive we can find in our research.

Links and notes

To the question whether science can explain why and what whales sing about asked by the author Legal capacity the best answer is Sounds – and quite loud ones – are made by almost all cetaceans, because one of the important ways of orientation of these mammals is echolocation. Whales also actively use sounds to communicate with each other, and some of them are very talkative. The trills of belugas, nicknamed sea canaries, and the conversations of dolphins are widely known. Research has shown that representatives of the right whale family (Balaenidae), such as the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), also actively communicate using sounds. But humpback whales, of course, are the brightest singers. Their singing can be surprisingly melodic and resembles the sound of a variety of musical instruments: oboe, clarinet, bagpipes. And if the recording of the voice of a humpback whale is played at a much higher speed, we will hear the typical song of a bird. These animals can also make other sounds - mournful sobs, roars, or even mouse squeaks.
By the way, the voices of whales can be heard very far underwater - acousticians have shown that in the thickness of sea water at a depth of about 1 km there are so-called sound channels through which sound can travel thousands of kilometers! Apparently, whales are aware of the existence of these channels and use them to communicate and transmit information.
It is not known for certain when people first noticed the loud songs of humpback whales. But scientists began to study them only after the underwater microphone (hydrophone) was invented. The earliest recordings of these whales' songs date back to the early 1950s. , and their detailed descriptions made by researchers R. Payne and S. McVeigh appeared even later - in the early 1970s. Then biologists found that in the complex songs of humpback whales, individual themes and phrases can be distinguished, repeated at certain intervals. The length of each song ranges from 7 to 15 minutes and depends on how many such phrases and themes are included in it for each whale. When the song is finished, the whale usually starts it again, repeating all the phrases in the same sequence.
The songs that humpback whales sing during mating are especially beautiful and loud. And what’s interesting is that at the beginning of the breeding season, all males hum a similar melody, which gradually changes over time and by the end of winter becomes completely different. When humpbacks return to their breeding grounds a year later, they begin their vocal exercises with the theme they “left off” at the end of the last season, and again after a few months the song changes. Sometimes over the course of 2-3 years the song does not change very much, and sometimes it changes beyond recognition.
But why do whales need their song to constantly change? American researcher Sel Sergio suggested that in conditions when all the males of the population hum the same thing, the females may, simply put, get a little tired of it. And then those suitors who manage to introduce something new into their singing and thus “rise above the crowd” will perhaps enjoy great success. At the same time, the new melody should not differ too much from the old one - otherwise it may lose its meaning, turning from a love serenade into something not at all attractive to females.

A lone whale has been swimming in the North Pacific Ocean for 20 years, unable to communicate with its relatives because it speaks on the wrong frequency.

The language barrier

The fundamental frequency of the calls of all baleen whales living in the North Pacific Ocean is at the limit of human audibility, between 10 and 20 Hz. But there is one whale that makes sounds at a frequency of 52 Hz. The unusual pitch of the voice, as many researchers believe, has led to the animal spending all its time alone. Over the years of observations, his calls never mixed with the calls of other whales.

First meeting

A whale named 52 Hz was first heard in 1989. His call was recorded by US Navy hydrophones stationed in the Pacific Ocean during the Cold War to alert enemy submarines. Three years later, the military allowed oceanographers to use their equipment, and since then the whale has been monitored continuously.

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Song

The whale got its name 52 Hz due to the fundamental frequency of its calls. In addition to frequency, its calls differ from the calls of other whales in rhythm and structure.

Biography

Since its discovery, the 52 Hz song has been heard every year - most recently last winter. Therefore he is at least 23 years old. During this time, according to some researchers, his voice became coarser, that is, he turned from a teenager into an adult. How long it will live is unknown, but baleen whales are believed to live for many decades.

Routes

Scientists can map the movements of a mammal over many years, even though no one has ever seen it. 52 Hz travels across the North Pacific Ocean, covering several thousand kilometers during the winter months - when it is audible. It usually moves at a speed of less than 4 km/h, but almost without stopping. Its paths lie in deep water hundreds of kilometers from the coast.

Communication

A whale's song consists of a series of calls lasting several seconds. Having given up the urge, 52 Hz remains silent for several minutes and then starts again. Some days he screams with minor breaks for 20 hours straight. You can hear it in winter - from December to February, the rest of the time nothing is known about it.

Researchers

The first biographer of 52 Hz was biologist William Watkins, one of the first people to record the voices of whales and dolphins. His interest in languages extended beyond animals: he knew several West African languages, and completed his dissertation on whale biology in Tokyo in Japanese.

Hearing

Whales find conspecifics (representatives of their own species) primarily by hearing. Light travels worse in water than in air, and sounds travel four times faster, allowing you to hear each other many kilometers away. Baleen whales produce sounds with a volume of more than 150 decibels - a person is physically unable to tolerate such a level of noise. The calls of blue whales can be recorded on a sensitive hydrophone from hundreds of kilometers away.

Relatives

There are three species of whales found in the North Pacific Ocean: the blue whale, the humpback whale and the fin whale, and they are all related. It is unknown what type 52 Hz belongs to. Perhaps he is a hybrid of two species of whales, or perhaps - although this is much less likely - he is the last representative of some other, unfamiliar species.