Marine biologists for the first time have recorded singing by one of the rarest whales on the planet, the North Pacific right whale.
US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) researchers used moored acoustic recorders to capture repeated patterns of calls made by male North Pacific right whales.
It is the first time right whale songs in any population have been documented, NOAA Fisheries marine biologist Jessica Crance said on Wednesday from Seattle.
Researchers detected four distinct songs over eight years at five locations in the Bering Sea off Alaska’s southwest coast, Crance said.
Only about 30 of the animals remain. Whalers nearly wiped out the slow-moving whales, which remain buoyant after they are killed.
During a field survey in 2010, NOAA Fisheries researchers first noted weird sound patterns they could not identify.
“We thought it might be a right whale, but we didn’t get visual confirmation,” Crance said.
The researchers reviewed long-term data from acoustic recorders and noted repeating sound patterns.
Seven years of frustration followed, as they could never confirm that the sounds were coming from right whales, Crance said.
The breakthrough came in 2017, when Crance and her team heard one of the whale songs in real time from the acoustic recorders on buoys.
Researchers can receive sound from up to four buoys at once and point them toward the source, allowing them to triangulate the position of the whale making the song.
From previous surveys and genetic studies, they identified it as a male right whale.
“It was great to finally get the confirmation when we were out at sea that yes, it is a right whale and it’s a male that’s singing,” Crance said.
Right whales make a variety of sounds. A predominant call sounds like a gunshot. They also make upcalls, downcalls, moans, screams and warbles.
To be a song, the sounds have to contain rhythmically patterned series of units produced in a consistent manner to form clearly recognizable patterns, Crance wrote in a paper for the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
“It’s a series of sounds that are reproduced in a stereotyped, regular manner that are repeated over and over,” she said.
Structurally, in timing and number of sounds, right whale songs resemble those of the Atlantic walrus, she said.
The discovery almost raises more questions than answers, Crance said.
“Is it the only population to sing or does it occur in other species and populations?” she asked.
“It could be that there are so few of them left, they feel the need to call more frequently or sing,” Crance said. “This is entirely speculation, but perhaps they’re copying humpbacks, a little bit. Our right whales are frequently seen associating with humpbacks.”
The remote Bering Sea makes studying right whales a challenge. Their range remains unknown and some years, NOAA Fisheries researchers see no right whales on their summer voyages.
They spotted what they believe was a juvenile in 2017, but the last Bering Sea mother-calf pairing was seen in 2004, Crance said.
A singing male might be trying to attract a female, she said.
“With only 30 animals, finding a mate must be difficult,” Crance said.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS