#Sperm whales

[whaleji]

[mindblowingscience]

A recent analysis of a sperm whale's vocalizations suggests variations in 'clicks' represent a kind of alphabet that forms the basis of a complex communication system. Members of the conservation initiative Project CETI discovered series of clicks less than 2 seconds in length act as codas – basic units (phonemes) of cetacean speech. The highly social mammals have previously been heard identifying themselves with unique patterns of clicking, but this is the first time a combinatorial and context-dependent structure has been demonstrated.

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[thepastisalreadywritten]

A clip of a family of sperm whales happily sleeping together. Sperm whales sleep vertically in the ocean. 🐋 🎥

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Ever since the discovery of whale songs almost 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher their lyrics. Are the animals producing complex messages akin to human language? Or sharing simpler pieces of information, like dancing bees do? Or are they communicating something else we don’t yet understand?

In 2020, a team of marine biologists and computer scientists joined forces to analyze the click-clacking songs of sperm whales, the gray, block-shaped leviathans that swim in most of the world’s oceans. On Tuesday, the scientists reported��that the whales use a much richer set of sounds than previously known, which they called a “sperm whale phonetic alphabet.”

People have a pho-ne-tic alphabet too, which we use to produce a practically infinite supply of words. But Shane Gero, a marine biologist at Carleton University in Ottawa and an author of the study, said it’s unclear whether sperm whales similarly turn their phonetic sounds into a language.

Since 2005, Dr. Gero and his colleagues have followed a clan of 400 sperm whales around Dominica, an island nation in the eastern Caribbean, eavesdropping on the whales with underwater microphones and tagging some of the animals with sensors.

Sperm whales don’t produce the eerie melodies sung by humpback whales, which became a sensation in the 1960s. Instead, they rattle off clicks that sound like a cross between Morse code and a creaking door. Sperm whales typically produce pulses of between three and 40 clicks, known as codas. They usually sing these codas while swimming together, raising the possibility that they’re communicating with one another.

Over the years, Dr. Gero and his colleagues have reviewed thousands of hours of recordings of the undersea noise. It turns out that sperm whale codas fall into distinct types.

All told, the researchers identified 156 different codas, each with distinct combinations of tempo, rhythm, rubato and ornamentation. Dr. Gero said that this variation is strikingly similar to the way humans combine movements in our lips and tongue to produce a set of phonetic sounds.

A single sound like “ba,” or “na” carries no semantic meaning on its own. But we can combine them into meaningful words like “banana.” The researchers raised the possibility that sperm whales might combine features of codas to convey meaning in a similar way.

Other experts said the whale alphabet marked an exciting advance. But they said sperm whale codas might be more akin to music than language.

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Sperm Whales

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDY MANN, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

[bennettmarko]

[sarahmackattack]

In the dark deep sea, sperm whales use echolocation to find food.

Their echolocation clicks are loud. 230 decibels loud. How loud is that? Well, loud enough that if a sound wave of 230 decibels hit ya, you'd be dead 😳

Want to learn more about how animals live in the dark? 👀

You do?? Well you're in luck because I'm teaching a class this summer starting June 20th that's all about Life in the Dark.

I'm rabies vaccinated. Let's go.

4 weeks, $75

[urisk-factor]

If I could I would become a marine biologist who studies sharks and sperm whales and ONLY sharks and sperm whales

[stymshots]

The clicking clique.

[eddieintheocean]

sperms whales cannonically socialise in the afternoon

[dropsofsciencenews]

Podcast episode 9 is OUT!

🇮🇹 L'episodio 9 è finalmente online! Parleremo di stagni, anfibi, pino silvestre, sistema nervoso e molto altro! Come sempre, una condivisione è più che benvoluta. Trova la tua piattaforma di ascolto sul nostro linktree. 🇪🇸 ¡El episodio 9 está finalmente en línea! Hablaremos de estanques, anfibios, pino silvestre, sistema nervioso y mucho más. Como siempre, una compartición es más que bienvenida. Encuentra tu plataforma de escucha en nuestro linktree. 🇬🇧 Episode 9 is finally online! We will talk about ponds, amphibians, Scots pine, the nervous system, and much more! As always, sharing is more than welcome. You can find your listening platform on our linktree.

[mindblowingscience]

A leading expert on sperm whales has gathered the evidence and shown that the biggest-brained animals on Earth form large and complex clans with unique dialects and behaviors. Using some rough calculations based on sperm whale populations, Hal Whitehead from Dalhousie University in Canada estimates that many of these clans number in the tens of thousands.

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[antiqueanimals]

Walt Disney's White Wilderness: Animals of the Arctic. By Robert Louvain and the Staff of the Walt Disney Studio. 1958.

Internet Archive

[hashbrown-16]

Thoughts and Feelings #3

That's it, im going commando.

My pen scratched with gale force as I signed the damned document. How eager a young nipper I was to join the Navy. My dream was to see their one-man band perform in the band stand from the comfort of the grandstand.

To hell with it all! I say, since the war ended and maritime radios weren't so trendy, the stollen-cake spies have been out of business.

'May Day, May Day!' I cried, into the gale-force winds. I dare confide my jolly sailor's cap unfixed from its jaunty angle, and unseamed me from the knave to the chaps! I digress, perchance.

I looked up then down then all around, what was a jolly giant doing in a place like this? As swift as a butter knife I dove into the water (Not to say we were anywhere near the cliffs of Dover! Oh how I do like to be beside the seaside...) Alas, I go on a tangent.

I write here now, on the back of a sperm whale, as an enemy of the state. Deserted, a deserter, what's for dessert?

Insanity is setting in. Judging by the position of the sun I can see it's nighttime, around 12am non-army time I will set my sights on the horizon, an enemy O' the state. I will swim with the fish and yell Sayonara to my old life.

Thanks for reading Not my best work, I saw Depeche mode last night and forgot to take any of my autism meds. But I felt like posting

@10kspoons the founder of the feast

@neil-gaiman

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Sperm whales gather together near Sri Lanka to socialise in the afternoons

Photographer: Douglas David Seifert