Whales learn songs on the verses
Humpback whales learn songs on fragments — just like when people remember the verses. Moreover, marine mammals are able to change their positions.
On this study was published in the journal PNAS.
The males of one population of whales, according to the authors of the article, performing the same complex song, but sometimes it changes. The emergence of the new songs — a form of social learning where knowledge is not transmitted from generation to generation and from one individual to another.
Researchers from the University of Queensland decided to perform the songs of whales in the moment of transition from one version to another, and found that these mammals can combine segments of songs, if their basic structure was similar.
In the course of work, scientists have recorded several whale songs of different males from populations of the South Pacific ocean, and tried to find among the recorded songs are those in which there are fragments of the old and new combinations of sounds.
When the researchers found such hybrids songs, they came to the conclusion that whales probably learn songs gradually, “verse” “verse”. Scientists suggest that this discovery will help to understand the development of human language in the process of social learning.