Brooke,
Whales sing to communicate.
Sounds pretty simple and a little strange...right? Well, it is not quite
that simple of that strange, really. Many animals communicate in many
different ways. Dogs wag their tails, cats flatten their ears and hiss.
They can communicate with other cats and dogs, and with you as well. If
you know what a dog means when he wags his tail, then you know how to speak
dog. Well a little anyway.
What we know about whales is that many of them make a lot of different
noises. We are still guessing about a lot of the rest. Some of the noises
are used as a sonar sense, to help most dolphins and some whales find their
way around or find food. The other noises are used for communication.
Whale "songs" are sounds that are made up of strings of sounds that are
arraigned and repeated in a predictable (to some extent) order. Think of a
simple song like "Row Row Row Your Boat" and you get the general idea. We
are not really sure how many species of whale actually sing songs. The
most famous, and well studies, though, is the humpback whale. Male
humpback whales (and only males ... we think) sing long complex songs
during part of the year. The generally sing around breeding time, and we
think that it is a way of either attracting a mate, or discouraging rival
males. Or maybe it is just a way for a whale to say "Hey everybody! There
is a really big whale out here that can sing really really long and loud
songs...Am I not cool?" Or something like that.
regards,
ge
-----Original Message-----
From: GaBiBoNe86@aol.com [SMTP:GaBiBoNe86@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2003 1:14 PM
To: gearly1@earthlink.net; pita@whale.wheelock.edu
Subject: whales
hi!
my name is Brooke Gambone i want to ask you something Why do whales
SING???????????????If you could answer my question it would be VERY
GREATFUL to me!
from your friend,
brooke gambone
p.s.I am 8.[Unable to display image]
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