Skip to content

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

New research gives insight into whale communication

Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes
Different dialects in sperm whales reveal more than meets the ear

In a study led from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, researchers believe they have uncovered more information regarding the different dialects sperm whales use to communicate.

Light Your Free Payer Candle for a departed loved one

What is Palm Sunday?

Live on March 20, 2024 @ 10am PDT

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The study focused on how sperm whales communicate, specifically if the languages are genetic or cultural in origin. Whales off the Galapagos Islands in the eastern Pacific were chosen for the study.

The research team wrote their findings in Nature Communications and noted whale chatter is a system of clicks and the vocalizations are not innate. 

Two clans were using specific clicking languages, also called codas. PhD student Maurício Cantor explained, "These codas sound like Morse code -patters of three to 12 or 15 clicks that vary in rhythm and tempo ... In one clan we call 'the regular clan,'  we heard regularly spaced clicks, but in another vocal clan that we call the 'plus-ones,' the coda types they make have an extended pause at the end before the last click."

Professor Hal Whitehead clarified that the two clans are extremely different.

"They behave differently; they move around differently; they babysit their babies differently," Whitehead told the BBC. "And so while a family unit from the regular clan will get together with another family unit from the same clan, sometimes for days - and the same for the plus-ones - we've never seen a regular unit associate with a plus-one unit."

The group's research indicates languages are taught from one whale to another and one clan sometimes copies bits of other codas which, "over time, [can produce] these different dialects."
Clans are never entirely alone. They often encounter other clans and learn from each other.

Professor Whitehead said, "Having spent a lot of time out there with them, it's become clear to me that in many ways sperm whales are even more social than us. They have little permanent in their environment except each other. They depend on each other for all kinds of things. You can see it - they touch each other a lot; they nuzzle. And being vocal creatures, it's not surprising they use sounds a lot."

He continues to say that studies to see how the clicks were made, they discovered the language was used as a way to bond with one another. 

"A second function is to indicate 'we are all the same social unit because we work together and have the same dialect,' but also, at a larger scale, to say 'we are part of the same clan' -and that may include thousands of whales who all see themselves as part of the same large social grouping," Whitehead said.

BBC Radio 4's Inside Science programme with Tracey Logan and BBC World Sercives's Science In Action programme with Jack Stewart will be meeting with the Dalhousie team later this week. 

---


'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'


Copyright 2021 - Distributed by Catholic Online

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Join the Movement
When you sign up below, you don't just join an email list - you're joining an entire movement for Free world class Catholic education.

Lent logo
Saint of the Day logo

Catholic Online Logo

Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited.

Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.