Group items tagged

"Researchers identified subtle variations caused by differences in the shape of individual whales' heads. It's the first time that sperm whale vocalizations have been linked to specific individuals. ... While the whales tended to possess the same basic repertoire of "codas" - the technical name for each distinctive series of clicks - one female had a completely different set. ... The question of whether it's appropriate to think of sperm whales as having names is a controversial one. Some scientists think that many cetaceans should be considered persons ..." See also "Sperm Whales Really Do Learn From Each Other" (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/sperm-whales/) - "Yes, sperm whale culture really is culture."

You can actually listen to an audio recording of this white whale--it sounds like a human talking through a kazoo....Amazing! But he died five years ago...I'm bummed that they didn't study it more.

New ways to grab dinner, the trick to using a tool, and learning the local dialect. These are behaviors that animals pick up from each other. K iller whales, chimpanzees, and birds seem to have a cultural component to their lives. Now a new study suggests that sperm whales should be added to that list.

"a new citizen science project for you to play with - matching up whalesong to try and analyze the watery leviathans' language... Each family of killer whales appears to have a distinct "dialect" that it uses to communicate, and closely related families appear to share calls ... Your task is to pick the one that's closest to the original call, with the help of visualizations of what the audio sounds like." The website is whale.fm.

"You can help marine researchers understand what whales are saying. Listen to the large sound and find the small one that matches it best. "

As far as we know, humans are still the only ones with language. But what separates language from communication? Why can't we assume that whales, with their elaborate songs, are simply speaking "whale-ese"? To be considered a true language, there are a few elements that are usually considered to be essential, says Kershenbaum. For one, it must be learned rather than instinctive - both whales and birds have this piece covered. For instance, killer whale calves learn a repertoire of calls from their mothers, and the sounds gradually evolve from erratic screams to adult-like pulsed calls and whistles. What holds whales and other animals back from language is that there is a limit to what they can express. There are only so many calls that each may convey different emotions, but only we have an unlimited ability to express abstract ideas.

This article reminds me of the "Singing Neanderthals" reading that we did. Perhaps whales, like babies, hear tones instead of actual words and can also perceive emotions of other whales they communicate with. If this is so, would this 'tone communication' be considered a language in of itself?

Believe it or not, sperm whales communicate with clicking noises-particularly patterns of different clicks referred to as codas. Scientists have found that animal language can be, in fact, complex and structured like our own language. Though it is debated whether or not animals actually have language, researchers continue to explore whether methods such as AI can help garner meanings-if exists-behind animal communication habits.

"They found that in any given humpback population, all the males will sing the same mating song. But the tune's pattern and structure will occasionally change, and as more catchy versions emerge they spread across the ocean - for some reason almost always moving west to east - and supplant the older, now stale songs."

wonderful radio interview with the woman who first discovered the songs of whales and is now researching how elephants communicate outside of human auditory range

Sperm whales have accents, reflecting what ocean they're from: these are socially learned. Calves go through a babbling phase, similar to humans.

Noc was a Beluga whale who learned to speak English (yes, "speak"). This article includes some discussion of mimicry vs. communication.

Documentary about Whale communication; similar to what we talked about in class. Talks about pods and different accents and interactions.

For the first time we have lowered a microphone into the Challenger Deep, the deepest known ocean trench. It picked up some surprising noises. Taken over a three week period in July 2015, these recordings provided a never before seen profile of the sounds of the deep.