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Popular Press
Used with assignment 6

A Whale of a Singer

(Newsweek, 1970)

Every schoolboy knows that the great whales of the world's oceans are not fish at all, but warm-blooded mammals who breathe air just like land creatures and also suckle their young. Now zoologists have discovered that some species can actually sing—or at least that the sounds they produce can only be described as songs.

One of the best singers is the humpback whale, a creature about 50 feet long with a bulky body rather like that of a jumbo jet. In style and function the humpback's song resembles a bird song but is much lower in pitch and longer-lasting—up to half an hour of elaborate sequences in infra-and ultra-sound frequencies, as well as audible sound. "The songs are like no earthly thing—very beautiful," says Roger Payne, a Rockefeller University zoologist who has studied the singing humpbacks for several years with support from the New York Zoological Society. His interest is in understanding how undersea animals communicate and his research turned up an interesting sidelight; in certain layers of the ocean, known as sound channels, humpback songs can travel thousands of miles without losing much power.

No one knows how the whales, who have no vocal cords, produce their haunting songs. Nor does anyone know their purpose, although most likely they represent no more than an oral calling card, identifying the presence of a humpback whale, or perhaps of a specific one. "The sounds serve possibly only one function," says Payne. "They allow two whales to converge, although it may take them days to get together." Soon, however, the humpback song will serve another function; making music for human ears. A composition by Alan Hovhaness, entitle, "And God Created Great Whales," and based on Payne's tape recordings of the humpbacks, will receive its premier next week as part of the New York Philharmonic's Promenade series.