Humpback whales learn songs in segments – like the verses of a human song – and can remix them, a new study involving University of Queensland research has found.
The study featured data from Associate Professor Michael Noad of the UQ School of Veterinary Science's Cetacean Ecology and Acoustics Laboratory (CEAL).
Research indicated that whale songs appeared to be learnt a similar way to how humans acquire language skills, or a bird learns its warble.
"All the males in a population sing the same complex song, but the pattern of song changes with time, sometimes quite rapidly, across the population," Dr Noad said.
"Learning new songs is a form of what's known as 'social learning', which is where individual animals learn behaviours from each other rather than having them passed on from one generation to another genetically.
"Although we know that whales change their songs over time, we don't know about how they learn the new songs.
"The rate of change though shows that they are constantly learning and updating their songs rapidly."
Yes, whales sing, but they only sing ska...
(Score: 0, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:34AM (2 children)
You city dwellers keep thinking whales are cute, but we killed them for a damn good reason. They cause harm, both directly to humans and indirectly by killing our livestock.
We even burned all the forest off of Mount Monadnock just to wipe out a whale pod. The mountain is still bald 2 centuries later.
At this point, reintroducing the whale is like introducing an invasive species. One might as well release lions and tigers and hippos and tse-tse flies and bot flies and the guinea worm. Heck, go for smallpox too!
People who support whales are a special kind of traitor. It's not really against a country. It's against humanity itself. We tamed the wilderness so we could live safely, and some people want to undo that.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:42PM (1 child)
Spam mod because this exact post and its snowclones have been showing up a lot lately
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:58PM
It's actually somewhat relevant tho, in a sarcastic self-referential way...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:59AM (9 children)
Is it possible that all the eds of SoylentNews could be infected, at the same time, with a psychotropic agent or malware? Whale songs! Yeah, that is what Soylentils want to know about! Or Micro$oft Paint? Or, for fuck's sake in honor of Runaway1956, Volcanos? Has the entire squad of editors gone insane? Have they been taken over by powers we cannot see? Is this now only yet another venue for the Lizard People to disseminate their mind-numbing and mind bending mis-information that can only be found of Brietbarf News? Is Steve Bannon really Trump's most disappointing appointment to the Attorney General Post? Of does he want to buy really expensive shoes? My God, people, is this how it ends? To quote Switch from the first Matrix movie, "Not like this, not like this." [aristarchus, limp on the floor, first time in over two millennia. You do not want this to happen. Really.]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:13AM (3 children)
If you're so butthurt why not submit some more fakeDonnyRump spam?
(Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:21AM (2 children)
Even I, who have been on this planet for 2400 years (almost), have standards. Now why have not the eds seen fit to post my Ann Coulter submission? What are they trying to hide? OK, that one is just schlok as well. Butthurt is an actual user, you know. You should ask him. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship! Round up the usual suspects and play it again, Sam! Or, straighten up and fly right, SoylentNews. The eds are are only hope, since Obi Wan Mutant Bussthard cannot save us!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:04PM
Ann Coulter is magnificent. She always makes a complete and utter imbecile of herself in public whenever they interview here on the British TV news. Jon Snow on Channel 4 had a particularly good go at her a while back and she readily obliged.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @12:22AM
Oh, wow, Aristarchus being a presumptuous cockbite again.
Dude, why can't you figure out that some of us don't want you to bite our cocks?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:38AM (3 children)
takyon! Just because a Soylentil calls you out on really bad ed choices, that does not mean you mod them down! And none of your Posse (takyon has a posse?) should mod down, either. We who are Soylentils, we the few, the proud, the extraordinately informed, expect more of you, our editors. Try to live up to the impossible standard you have been given. An attempt would be appreciated.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:48PM (2 children)
Why is Marine Biology a bad choice of topics? I don't get it....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @02:38AM (1 child)
Not per se. It is just that the real title was "Whales learn songs more like humans than previously thought."
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:51PM
Oh, that's actually pretty funny!
A bit more context next time...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @12:24AM
If Ari is ever found limp on the floor, and if you wish to revive him, just parade a naked little boy through the room. Ari will be on that boy like Greek on shit!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:25AM
A whale is a whale, so swell, so swell,
And no one can talk to a whale so well,
It would be hell, unless the whale, is the famous Mr. Hale.
Go right to the mail and write the whale,
He'll give you the answer that you'll think is swell.
He's always on a steady trail.
Talk to Mr. Hale.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @06:46AM (2 children)
For Jap science.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday July 26 2017, @09:26AM (1 child)
harpooning whales and doing nothing for justin bieber seems a fucked up priority to me
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:46PM
harpooning whales and doing nothing for justin bieber seems a fucked up priority to me
You're right, we need to to be harpooning them both. In the name of science!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday July 26 2017, @05:45PM
Queensland researchers, eh?
You'd think with all the money the Japanese are spending on whale science [soylentnews.org] they'd have been the ones to figure this out!
(Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday July 27 2017, @05:48AM
the handle DJ Humpback.. the funky dude with the hump might get sued by PETA..