Sperm whale ‘clans’ in the Pacific mark out their culture with songs

Seven ancient “clans” of sperm whales live in the vast Pacific Ocean, proclaiming their cultural identity by distinctive patterns of clicks within their songs,

Seven ancient “clans” of sperm whales live in the vast Pacific Ocean, proclaiming their cultural identity by distinctive patterns of clicks within their songs, according to a new study.

It’s the first time cultural markers have been observed among whales, and they mimic markers of cultural identity among human groups, like distinctive dialects or tattoos.

The discovery is also a step toward a scientific understanding of what whales say to one another in their underwater songs — something that’s still a mystery despite years of research.

Bioacoustician Taylor Hersh, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and lead author of the study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said that sperm whales often exchange streams of loud clicks with each other when they’re resting near the surface between dives into deeper waters — sometimes more than a mile down — for prey like squid and fish.

The streams of clicks are divided into what are called “codas” and the calls are known as sperm whale “songs” — although they’re not very musical and can sound a bit like hammering and squeaking (Navy sonar operators used to call sperm whales “carpenter fish” for this reason). 

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/sperm-whale-clans-pacific-mark-culture-songs-rcna47287

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