Humpback whale songs are the subject of a 'cultural revolution' every few years | Science

Like any mania, the songs of the humpback whales do not stay long. Every two or three years, the men exchange their chorus of squeaks and moan against a new one. Now scientists have understood how these "cultural revolutions" unfold.

All humpback whales in a population sing the same song and seem to learn new songs, a little like people do. Men in the Australian humpback whale population, for example, listen to a new song every two or three years from the western Australian population on common feeding grounds or during their migration. In the next few years, songs have spread to all people in the South Pacific.

To understand how whales learn new ballads, scientists have analyzed whale song in Eastern Australia for 13 consecutive years. Using spectrograms of 412 song cycles of 95 singers, scientists evaluated the complexity of each melody for the number of sounds and themes, and studied the subtle variations that each man can add to distinguish himself. The complexity has increased as the songs evolve (as the video below), reports the team today in the press. Acts of the Royal Society B. But after a revolution of the song, the ballads became shorter with fewer sounds and themes.

Revolutionary songs may be less complex than old ones because whales can learn only a certain amount of new material at a time, the scientists conclude. This could mean that, although humpback whales are still crooners of the sea, their learning skills are somewhat limited.