How do whales sing? Scientists may have figured it out at last
- The giant marine mammals have specialised voice boxes that other animals don’t have, which could be the key to the long-time mystery
- With no teeth or vocal cords, whales may instead push a U-shaped piece of tissue against a cushion of fat and muscle to produce their famous vocalisations
Whales sing loud enough that their songs travel through the ocean, but knowing the mechanics behind that has been a mystery.
Scientists now think they have an idea, and it is something not seen in other animals: a specialised voice box.
Experts say the discovery, while based on a study that is too tiny to be definitive, will direct future research into how whales communicate.
In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, Coen Elemans of the University of Southern Denmark and colleagues studied the voice boxes, or larynxes, from three dead, stranded whales – a humpback, minke and sei, which are all types of baleen whales.
In the laboratory, the scientists blew air through the voice boxes under controlled conditions to see what tissues might vibrate. Researchers also created computer models of the sei whale’s vocalisations and matched them to recordings of similar whales taken in the wild.