FLICKR, STEVE WATSON
Most sperm whales live in family groups, which tend to aggregate into larger clans and communicate with each other through “clicks.” Each clan has a unique click dialect, but whales from different clans sometimes inhabit the same waters—and without physical barriers, scientists were unsure how these vocal patterns remained distinct. According to a study published in Nature Communications last month (September 8), young whales learn their dialect from surrounding clan members.
An international group led by Mauricio Cantor, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Canada, analyzed an 18-year behavioral dataset from sperm whales near the Galápagos Islands. By modeling hypothetical scenarios, the researchers concluded that the most likely explanation for the different dialects is that whales learn vocalization patterns from similar neighbors.
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