Think of whales as nature’s deejays.
Humpback whales learn songs in segments, similar to the way humans acquire language skills, a new study has found. The cetaceans can also compose new songs using learned verses, similar to a remix.
Scientists already knew that whales teach each other new songs using a kind of “social learning,” instead bestowing them genetically. New research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, shows these aren’t a new song entirely. The whales riff off each other, taking segments and rearranging to form a “hybrid song” but leaving some chunks untouched.
Sometimes entire pod will suddenly start singing a new tune, perplexing researchers. “The rate of change though shows that they are constantly learning and updating their songs rapidly,” Michael Noad from the University of Queensland said in a press release.
Single sounds, grouped into segments called phrases, are repeated to form themes and those are strung together to create a song, according to The Atlantic. The technique, known as “chunking,” is also used by children and birds when they learn to communicate. It suggests a similar process might occur in the brains of three disparate species.
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