NOT YER AVERAGE WARBLERS . . .

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Warbling whales speak a language all their own

March 22, 2006

The songs of the humpback whale are among the most complex in the animal kingdom. Researchers led by an MIT graduate student have now mathematically confirmed that whales have their own syntax that uses sound units to build phrases that can be combined to form songs that last for hours.

Until now, the ability to use such a hierarchical structure of communication has been seen only in humans.

MIT News Office release. (source of the above story)

AND

Howard Hughes Medical Institute article

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What can i say . . . other than fascinatin' stuff . . .

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Wow! That's so cool...! (SYNTAX!)

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so long, and thanks for all the fish

mr. adams might have been on to something after all

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lovely!

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I do genuinely find this sort of thing fascinating, and if i remember, i'll try to provide more information.

I'm often a bad puppy, though, and may forget to do more research.

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Djjd, you are a thoroughly bad man . . . you know, there is a song out, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Those whale "songs" are apparently audible over thousands of miles. Perhaps the cetacean "dream time" . . . i've also read that the songs are "polluted" by the sound of high-speed propellers on ships.

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Looking forward to more... though of course I could try looking for it, too.

Language acquisition and linguisitics fascinate me, animal intelligence fascinates me, the intersection is way fascinatin'.

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NOT YER AVERAGE WARBLERS . . .

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