You may sing in the bathtub, but have you ever tried singing underwater? I bet it doesn’t sound nearly as beautiful as a humpback whale song!
I’m Dennis Rogers for the Petersburg Marine Mammal Center.
Most people have heard recordings of humpback whale songs at one time or another. These are true songs comprised of a wide range of complex melodies, tones and repetitive stanzas.
The singing takes place almost exclusively on the winter breeding grounds. Research shows that it is only the male humpback that sings. Although many whales may sing in an area at the same time, each whale sings individually and will leave an area if another whale, usually another male, approaches.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the singing is that the song changes throughout the season and from year to year and yet every whale sings exactly the same version of a song. The song changes enough that if you were to listen to whale songs taped at five-year intervals, the entire song would be completely different.
North Pacific humpbacks even sing the same song in breeding grounds in different geographic areas such as Hawaii and Baja Mexico. This leads researchers to puzzle over how this information is passed from one whale to another. Do they mimic a leader? Do they somehow communicate the change within and between geographic areas? Is there some genetic code that regulates this behavior? Perhaps we will never know for sure, but it certainly adds to the mystery of these magnificent creatures.
