Jakarta –
A recent study succeeded in revealing how whales can produce sounds and songs while in the ocean. It turns out that this is very important for the survival of whales in the ocean.
This finding is an important breakthrough for scientists, because the noise in the sea produced by ships can be very disturbing for whales. This relates to whale sounds being limited to a narrow frequency, thus overlapping with the noise produced by ships.
“Sound is very important for their survival, because it is the only way they can find their mates in the ocean,” explained Prof Coen Elemans, from the University of Southern Denmark, quoted from BBC News.
How Can Whales Produce Songs?
Scientists have discovered how some of the largest whales in the ocean produce complex and mysterious songs.
In findings published in the journal Natureit is known that baleen whales have developed a special “voice box” that allows them to sing underwater.
Baleen whales are a group of 14 species, including blue, humpback, right, minke, and gray whales.
Instead of teeth, these animals have plates called baleen, which are used to filter large numbers of small creatures from the water.
To find out how exactly they produce their complex songs, Prof Elemans and his colleagues conducted experiments using the larynx or “voice box”.
The larynx was carefully removed from three stranded whale carcasses, namely the minke whale, humpback whale and sei whale. They then blew air through the large structure to produce sound.
To illustrate, in humans, our voice comes from vibrations when air passes through structures called vocal cords in our throat.
Meanwhile, baleen whales have a large U-shaped structure with a fat pad at the top of the larynx. This vocal anatomy allows them to sing by recycling air, and preventing water from being inhaled.
Sea Noise Disrupts Whale Songs
Through this research, scientists have produced computer models of sound. The results show that baleen whale songs are restricted to a narrow range of frequencies that overlap with the noise produced by shipping vessels.
“They can’t just choose, for example, to sing higher to avoid the noise we make in the sea,” explains Prof Elemans.
These findings provide a clear conclusion that ocean noise can prevent whales from communicating over long distances.
Therefore, this knowledge is very important for the conservation of humpback whales, blue whales and other endangered giant marine animals.
“The production and reception of sound is the most important sense for marine mammals, so any research that explains how they make sound has the potential to advance this field,” said Dr Kate Stafford, a whale communication expert from Oregon State University responding to this research.
“This research also provides an evolutionary picture of how whale ancestors returned to the ocean from land and the adaptations that enabled underwater communication,” he added.
Watch the video “Sighting of Dead Sperm Whale Stranded on Jembrana Beach”
(faz/nwk)
2024-02-22 13:00:00
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