Behavioural Variations - The Song of the Humpback Whale

Jon Cornforth

Behavioural Variations are evidences of culture that don't have any sort of relationship to genetics. A Whales song is a form of social learning, for it is taught. This song develops and changes when whales are thousands of miles apart, where there is no one near to teach.

When whales socialize, they don't speak in a language like ours. Their language is more of a song with notes and sounds. These songs are similar to human songs; they deal with the same themes, yet they contain so much more information that humans can't interpret. A humpback whale's song contains about 200 times more information than a human's song. Groupings of these sounds have three uses: they can help whales communicate with others, they can help whales figure out where each other are (echolocation), and they are used for mating. Every species of whale has their own specific vocalizations. For the male humpback whale, this song is long and elaborate. Some of their songs can go on for hours, especially if they are the whales mating song. This song is sung in the breeding grounds by the male. All male humpbacks sing essentially the same song, but it changes and develops as time passes, and becomes distinctive to which ocean they are swimming in. For example, all humpback whales who swim in the Pacific Ocean will sing one type of song and humpback whales from the Indian Ocean will sing another.

However, in 1997, this separation changed. This change is known as the "Australian Revolution". On the east side of Australia there was a grouping of humpback whales who sang the South Pacific Ocean song. It was in 1997 when researchers started to notice a new song that was being sung. When it came time for the whales to travel south in '97, almost all of the humpbacks were singing this new song. The next year all of the Humpbacks were singing the song. Researchers discovered that the new song that was being sung was the Indian Ocean song sung by the humpback whales on the west side of Australia. It seemed that in 1996, a humpback whale from the West side of Australia went to the East, when traveling North. This new song perked the attention of all the other males and females. Just like a fad would take over and spread like wildfire, this song did the same to the whales. More and more male humpbacks started to sing the song until eventually, all the males were singing it. Thus proving the vulnerability of a whales culture and how the are influenced by each other.

http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/species/cetaceans/sound.html

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lr/culture.pdf

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/hw/Cult_cons.pdf

Transmission Mechanisms Between Orca Whales

Transmission mechanisms are social learnings. For whales, social learning means skills learned through teaching, imitation, emulation and experience. Just as a human parent would teach their child what to do or not to do, parental whales do the same. These teaching and knowledge are evidences to a whale's culture.

An oddity taught by a parent Orca whale to their young is the feeding technique called self-stranding hunting.

This technique is exactly how it sounds. It is when an orca will purposely go up onto the shore to catch a bite to eat. The young killer whale will watch it's mother diligently in the act, but is not allowed to actually catch the prey until it is approximately six years of age. Even then, the young whale is not left alone and is helped with the capture. Self-stranding hunting may literally strand the whales on the shoreline and therefore, could be called maladaptive behaviour, which will be discussed further in a future entry.

However, self-stranding hunting is a skill that strictly pertains to orca whales. It is a non-human teaching. Orcas also take part in many human teachings such as playing games, resting, and itching themselves and playing on rocks. It is thought that whales never sleep, so in order to regain their strength, they need to rest. But resting is a skill. When they are young, they stick as close to their mother and rest when she does. This is where they learn to stick to the surface and stick to the centre of the pod, when sleeping. When the young are all rested up, play is strongly encouraged. Games such as "Chase me Charlie" or lets roll over moms tail. These are energetic games that allow the young orca to swim rapidly, dive, surface, and splash around. All good techniques to improve their swimming skills.

Jim Maya

http://www.wdcs.org/submissions_bin/orcareport.pdf

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lr/culture.pdf

An Introduction to Whale Culture

Nancy Black

Culture is one of those words with a hundred different definitions. Most of these definitions are only relevant to human and their way of life. This is because most people do not know that culture exists in non-human species such as apes, songbirds, elephants, and whales. In fact, out of these animals, whales have the strongest sense of culture. But what is culture?

The definition that most biologists use in reference to non- human culture is " information or behaviour - shared by a population or subpopulation - which is acquired from conspecifics through some form of social learning" (Rendell and Whitehead, 2001a). Simply, it is information gained through interactions from members of the same group - how and why they do what they do.

Now culture can be divided and thought of in two different parts: horizontally, and vertically. Horizontally, also known as shared and behavioural variations, is behavioural patterns gained form peers - eg. fads. Vertically, also known as social learning and transition mechanisms, is what is learned form our parent and elders, it is related to genetics. It is learning through teaching, emulation, imitation, and experience - eg. language. However, studying whale culture is difficult, because they are hard to observe in such a vast habitat. Furthermore, if they were to be studied in tanks, this would have a great influence on the behaviours and cultures of the whales. Basically, it would interfere with the culture they would exhibit in their natural habitat. Consequently, only three species of whales have been documented. These species are: humpback whale, orca, and sperm whale.

It is odd to think that these factors pertain to whales, but they do. Behavioural patterns, such as Orca feeding techniques, the humpback whales mating song, and their feeding styles are effects of culture. But, all whales of each respective species have specific and odd cultural traits. Some that have been around for a while and others that are changing with time - eg. family structure and maladaptive behaviour.

Thus, these are the interesting evidences of whale culture that I am going to further explore and document.

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lr/culture.pdf

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/hw/Cult_cons.pdf