A group of female Sperm whales diving for food off the Galapagos Islands. (Image Credit: Mauricio Cantor, Whitehead Lab, Dalhousie University)
Sperm whales learn different ‘dialects’ of their ‘click’ sounds through cultural learning, a method of learning found in both Orcas and humans, say researchers. This reinforces the idea that the same processes responsible for the formation of human cultures can operate in animal societies.
Sperm whales live in clans – groups of families that can be distinguished by the pattern of their vocal “click” repertoires. Researchers looked at data of sperm whale social interactions and vocalisations collected over 18 years near the Galapagos Islands, to understand how these vocal clans most likely emerged.
The researchers concluded that the dialects likely emerged through the whales preferentially learning, and emulating the vocalisations of whales that behaved in a similar fashion.
Original research paper published in Nature Communications on September 8, 2015.
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