August 9, 2010

Blue Whales Synchronize Song Pitch

Male blue whales off California produce the same note, four octaves below middle C, perhaps as a mating beacon to females. Christopher Intagliata reports

Illustration of a Bohr atom model spinning around the words Science Quickly with various science and medicine related icons around the text

SUBSCRIBE TO Science Quickly

Apple | Spotify | YouTube | RSS

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

Blue whales off the California coast make calls that, sped up 10 times, sound like (sound of two-part call). The original is a wall-rattling frequency too low for us to hear. Scientists analyzed around 2,500 of those calls, and found that the second part (sound) is nearly identical in pitch every time from each whale: 16 hertz, or four octaves below middle C. And the slight variations in frequency that do exist are only a tenth of the difference between a C and a C sharp. Those findings appear online in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. [Michael Hoffman, Newell Garfield and Roger Bland, http://bit.ly/9oCoP0]

The researchers don't know how many different individual whales they caught singing, or why even they sing at all. But past studies suggest only blue whale males make calls like this. So the investigators speculate that males might synchronize to a single common pitch as a sort of mating beacon.

Thanks to the Doppler effect, females swimming towards a male would hear a slightly higher pitch; swimming away, a lower-pitched moan. Serenade out of tune—you might be swimming solo tonight.

--Christopher Intagliata

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]

It’s Time to Stand Up for Science

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.

I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.

If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.

In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can't-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world's best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.

There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.

Thank you,

David M. Ewalt, Editor in Chief, Scientific American