The History of the Mystery
In 1967,a National Geographic expedition, led by Roger Payne, discovered humpback whale song. Three years later, a sound sheet was pressed with the recordings of the whale’s songs and distributed along with the National Geographic magazine to houses around the country. Since then the interest in the songs of the sea has be fervent, and hundreds of scientists have studied the songs of the whales. In 1978 H.E Winn, a Stanford oceanographer, published a paper claiming that whale song was used for male whale battles and sexual selection. Since then many other papers have argued that songs are used for both, while other papers argue that songs are used for only one of the reasons. Today researchers, science journalists, museums, and the general public, all seem to have different ideas for why the whales sing!
The Facts and Opinions
The males are the only Humpbacks who sing, so many people assume that whale songs must have to do with selecting mating pairs. However, oceanographers have observed very few interactions where males mate with females as a direct consequence of the song. Another important detail is that males often meet with other males while singing the songs, perhaps to frolic, or to fight.
Rich Ellison