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(Listen to the song at the source)
Listen to the incredible song now repeat all the whales
Scientists discovered that males are copied to the same melody as if it were a pop chorus, during each mating
ABC / MADRID
Day 14/04/2011 - 7:41 p.m.
The beautiful dance of whales
The humpback whales have their own version of what a "single" of success. At one point, within a population, all male humpback whales start singing the same tune of mating. But the pattern of the song changes with time, apparently new and catchy versions that are broadcast repeatedly across the ocean, almost always traveling from west to east. The study is published in the journal Current Biology . Here (click above) you can hear what you sing now.
"Our findings reveal a large-scale cultural change," says Ellen Garland, a researcher at the University of Queensland. Several songs were moving as "cultural waves from one population to another, making all the males change their song by a new version." This is the first time you pick up a large-scale cultural exchange in a species that is not human.
Researchers at the University of Queensland, in collaboration with members of the Whale Research Consortium of the South Pacific, managed the discovery by looking for patterns in whale songs recorded six neighboring populations in the Pacific Ocean for more than a decade. This revealed a striking pattern of cultural transmission and the dissemination of whale songs from Australia to French Polynesia in the course of about two years.
"The songs started in the population that migrates along the east coast of Australia and then moved-only songs, whales, probably not, up to French Polynesia in the east," says Garland. "The western males learned songs first and then learned in a phased manner over a vast region"
Garland said that the movement almost exclusively of songs to the east may be due to differences in population size, because the group on the east coast of Australia is very large compared to everyone else in the area. Researchers suspect that perhaps a small number of males moving to other populations, taking their songs with them, or that whales nearby populations hear the new songs as they swim together during migration.
Mix the Beatles to U2
Most often, the songs contain some elements of the previous year that are mixed with something new. "It's like an old song join the Beatles to U2," says Garland. "Occasionally, a song completely and forgets to sing a new start."
Once you emerge a new song, all the males seem to change tone quickly. Garland admits that it is not known why the songs of the humpback whale spread this way. In fact, even it is well known why the whales sing. The song can be a display for mating, but it is unclear whether the main effect is to attract females or repel rival males.
, Anne W. Goldizen, Melinda L. Rekdahl, Rochelle Constantine, Claire Garrigue, Nan Daeschler Hauser, M. Michael Poole, Jooke Robbins, Michael J. Noad
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