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The songs of male humpback whales in some parts of the Pacific Ocean are imitated by whales in other parts of the ocean at enormous distances of up to 14 thousand kilometers (km)shows a recent study by an international team of researchers from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, the San Francisco University of Quito and the Acoustic Ecology Program of the CETACEA Project of Ecuador.
It was previously known that humpback whale males, 'Megaptera novaeangliae', sing a stereotyped song that evolves slowly each year and is transmitted from eastern Australia to French Polynesia. However, scientists did not know the extent of this "cultural transmission," the article said, published in the Royal Society Open Science.
Although it is not known for certain why whales sing these songs, oceanographers suspect that it is probably for the same reason that many birds, humans and other species of the animal world do it: to attract a couple.
The study suggests that unidirectional singing transmission in the South Pacific extends not only from Australia to French Polynesia (about 6 thousand km), but also to an additional distance of 8 thousand km to Ecuador. This finding shows that there is vocal connectivity between populations that are separated by 14 thousand km.
To reach such a conclusion, the scientists recorded humpback whale songs between 2016 and 2018 at various sites in the Pacific. After analyzing the sounds, they discovered that two populations, one in French Polynesia and the other near Ecuador, had been singing two very different songs between 2016 and 2017, but that in 2018 both groups were recorded singing the same song.
"Half the world is now connected vocally by whales," said Ellen Garland, a marine biologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and one of the study’s co-authors, in her comments to The New York Times.
The study argues that understanding this cultural phenomenon will provide valuable perspectives for studying the evolution of complex communication, including the evolution of human language and culture. " As with humans, migration patterns are written in the songs of humpback whales, "concludes. (Text and photos: RT in Spanish)
