Deep voices: whales sing same song to stay in tune

Male humpback whales in a population all sing the same song at any one time, new research has revealed.

Scientists at the University of St Andrews and Australia’s University of Queensland studied whale song patterns of whales over a course of 13 years.

They found each song evolves slightly over time but is completely replaced with a new, simpler song in cultural ‘revolution’ events that occur every few years.

It’s thought the gradual changes may be embellishments by individuals looking to stand out from the crowd and that revolutions are simpler because the ocean giants may struggle to learn new tunes.

Dr Jenny Allen, from the University of Queensland, said: “The consistent reduction in complexity during song revolutions suggests a potential limit to the social learning capacity of novel material in humpback whales.”