Singing whales like Caruso
1987/12/01 Nuñez-Betelu, Koldo | Martinez, Mertxe Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria
Of all the species existing today, cetaceans have the largest brain and other associated characteristics, as they can spend whole months without sleep, sing songs, are mammals with longer migrations,...
Whale digesting is the largest animal of all time. The largest dinosaur in the Mesozoic, the Brachiosaur, is three times heavier, as the blue whale can reach 38 meters in length and 165 tons.
In the Voyager I and II spaces there is a 90-minute album in which the Beethoven Symphony No. 5, the crying of a child, the rain, the mermaid of a factory and the singing of the whales are recorded, in order to inform the possible creatures of another world.
Following the thread of cetaceans, whales are social animals living in small family units. For all cetaceans social life is very important and the isolated individual sick of resignation. The social structure is essential to survive, especially to maintain the psychological balance.
The animals of the same group help themselves, warn of dangers, seek food among themselves, play, etc. at once.
Whale societies can be much more complex and evolved than we imagine, because they have a very good memory, they can communicate over long distances, they are very sensitive beings, they have notable differences between individual identities, the maternal instinct and that of mutual help are very strong, which is more significant, they have special intelligence the rest of animals (except that of men).
Mutual communication
The fishermen of Great Britain know the great white whale as a marine canary, as in those who command the fog they can hear their cries.
However, for a long time it has been considered that whales were deaf among researchers, as they do not have their ears exposed. Later it has been discovered that they have ears, being the ability that better developed the ear. In the place of the ears, next to the mouth, the embedded ear tubes (1-5 mm) are protected by skin.
Because the sea is uncrystalline, in the subsoil the nose and eyes can be worth little, especially if they go down to very deep places, and cetaceans sometimes descend to a thousand meters, like pigs, to hunt giant cephalopods. The light reaches a maximum of two hundred meters. Therefore, the only sense worth in deeper waters is the ear. Besides, though often do not descend to dark places, in murky waters it is not visible and eyes can not at all perform their function. For this reason, whales have been able to develop their hearing capacity, very well managed, throughout evolution.
As we have said, his ears are very well prepared for the ear, being more powerful than ours. These animals can receive sounds with a frequency of 170,000 Hertz. It is much more than human can reach 20,000 Hertz. Their frequency band is wider than ours and the sounds they can emit are more than the most serious sound we can hear.
Along with the ear, the sound emission capability is very advanced. In general, according to what they want, they emit two types of sounds: those of ecolloquium and those of communion, which we call in many cases songs, although for the moment their character and concrete meaning are dark.
But how can they create sounds if they don't have a real mouth string? There is a cavity for larynx and mouth strings.
Its air duct extends from the gap between the jaws to the nasal cavity, where it is fixed by a consistent layer of cellular tissue. This way, the water that is inserted through the mouth cannot reach the nose or lungs.
The sound mechanism consists of a strange valve, tube and mesh of sacks placed in the nose, which would also participate in the processes of immersion and flotation. In short, they can get the sound by vibrating the cellular tissue that binds the larynx, which would be amplified in air bags located in the nasal cavity. Along with all this, it has been found that the whale does not need air to emit any sound. Throughout the pulsations of the sound does not emit air bubbles, since the sound, as said later, occurs by vibrating the tissue of the larynx side.
So far we have analyzed how the whale produces, but not all sounds use them for the same functions. A very advanced system in cetaceans is the ecolloquiation, or what is the same, the radar invented by Nature long ago, which consists in emitting sounds and ringing again. Through the echolocation, the whale can see the echo of the waves reflected by the obstacles surrounding it without using the eyes.
The grease of the jaws and the front becomes semiconductor and amplifier of reflected acoustic signals.
Therefore, as has been said so far, the whale can emit different types of waves to be able, on the one hand, to orient itself and on the other, to create some communication.
Several cetologists have denied that whales exchange information when they emit rare and rhythmic sounds, but many specialists agree on what is known as true communication.
Not all species of whales speak too much. Some only emit stripes and loose dyes. But there are others who offer similar underwater concerts, responding to each other.
The most beautiful songs are those of the whale for its charm. Therefore, in many places they are called singing whales. In the concerts of this whale you can differentiate themes, changes, pretensions of phrase, questions and answers. However, despite the efforts made by acoustics researchers, they have not yet managed to translate the language of whales.
We should associate each sound group with a certain behavior, but whales are too scarce to achieve them and the conditions of experimentation are too difficult. When these animals are in groups, they offer amazing concerts. Each whale only works for half an hour and then conversations are created. Easily analysable sound sequences consist of huge berries, complaints and modulations. The concerts are held under the surface of the sea a few meters deep for several hours. When they have to breathe they don't cut the songs, but they distort the disturbances they generate. In each song they only breathe once and always on the same theme.
All whales in the same group sing the same song, with small variations year after year.
In all species the time of song persists during zeal, that is, for about four months. After this, silence is almost absolute as long migrations take place.
At first it was thought that only males sang it, and also, seeing that it coincided with the time of fertilization, the wrong conclusion was reached that the songs were to seduce females. Later it was shown that females also sang songs that could be crib.
Researchers investigating whale behavior cannot compare spectrograms to cetaceans with those of other animals.
In these spectrograms it can be observed that, although the songs are repeatable, they evolve from week to week as new improvisations are made.
There is no other animal that has such complex and inventive behavior as the musical whale, except for man.
Each musical result represents the congenital and reached part, that is, the whales have fixed rules for composition and talent, demonstrating a true imagination.
Although the whales do not create true songs (since they emit rites of very low frequency), the word song makes sense, since with this word we want to express the sequence of regular sounds.
Normally each song is composed of six different themes; each song is composed of several sentences and each sentence by two or five different sounds.
In each interpretation the sounds are followed in the same arrangement, and if a subject is ceded, the sequence of those that remain does not change.
Although from one group to another there are different themes (and even within one group), all songs have a basic structure and a general order for all whales. Even if whales are from different seas and if there is contact between whales or not.
As we mentioned before, the songs change year after year. The hypothesis accepted long ago, that whales forgot songs in the silent season, today is not taken into consideration. Records made over several years rub that whales do not forget migrations, but recover them as they left them. They have very good memory, so the changes do not occur in the period of silence and this can show that the changes are not the result of the month of November or oblivion. On the contrary, the songs are improving, the irregular phrases are lost, the song gets a better organization, offering songs increasingly coherent and precise.
Some sounds emitted by whales can be heard far away, as those of low frequency spread very well through the water. The emissions of the blue whale are very burdensome and allow the exchange of information to hundreds of kilometers.
The Xibarta whale, for example, emits sounds of 20 Hertz and its low-frequency sound hardly absorbs the sea.
American biologist Roger Payne has calculated that whales can achieve communication at a frequency of 20 Hertzs at a very high distance using seabed sound channels. That is, one could speak from one end to the other of open sea without great problems. Whales may have had a global communications network throughout most of their history.
Over millions of years, these great, yet intelligent and communicative animals have evolved without a real enemy. After XIX. In the 20th century, steam ships that had just appeared in the seas began a strong noise pollution. As commercial and military ships have proliferated and increased, the noise of the seabed (especially in 20 Hertzas) has been accentuated.
Whales that communicated along the seas have suffered increasing difficulties, reducing slightly the distance that could be communicated. 200 years ago, the typical distance in which the stirrups could be communicated could be a thousand kilometers or more, but today the sound can spread in very few kilometers.
Language and intelligence
For some researchers, the peaceful life of cetaceans would allow them to have a contemplative brain, since most of their activities would be playful. On the contrary, most specialists do not consider most activities playful, but in the songs mentioned it is a real linguistic structure and not deciphered so far.
The issue of cetacean intelligence has often been widely discussed, with very little research so far. However, its brain development, its individual and social behavior, as well as its communication capacity, could be placed at the height of the most intelligent animals on this planet.
The physical location of the intellectual or reason is considered to be that of the outside of the brain (the neocortex). It is considered that to greater development and size, greater complexity and greater degree of intelligence of the animal.
According to paleontologists, in several species the neoortex appeared several million decades ago, being the most modern part of the brain. Its evolution has been very rapid, especially in cetaceans and hominids. Both man and whales could have similar cognitive functions.
The human brain weighs about a kilo and a half, but a whale can weigh up to 10 kilos. The fact that organs that are not used throughout evolution disappear or become lumpy is now accepted by the majority. Therefore, the intelligence that this great brain can give to whales could be somehow used. On the other hand, it is assumed that in order to fulfill the linguistic functions the brain must reach a critical size, and that critical size that is supposed to create the language is held by the brains of cetaceans. According to paleontologists, the whale reached about 20 million years ago, that is, long before man.
Neurophysiological studies have shown the presence of sensory and motor receptors in the neoortex area. In addition, they have very developed the silent face of the cerebral cortex, more than the human being. As indicated, the brain is very developed and the cerebral hemispheres have a large number of circumvolutions. Completely developing the auditory nerves, the most developed ability is hearing and can hear ultrasound.
J. Biologist Lilly believes that the sound language of cetaceans is very different from that of humans, because ours is based on images.
Relationships between individuals not only serve to obtain food or reproduce, but also to collaborate and play in situations of risk. At the moment, the levels of communication and intelligence that can indicate all this are subject to exhaustive research.
Still, some people only see whales for commercial purposes. Considering at least the features mentioned in the article, we will definitely end the massacre. So be it.
Gai honi buruzko eduki gehiago
Elhuyarrek garatutako teknologia
