Скачать или смотреть Immerse yourself in songs of humpback whales: Winter solstice in Monterey Bay

Since 2015, MBARI researchers have been using underwater microphones, or hydrophones, to record the underwater soundscape in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, including a wide variety of whale vocalizations.

Whales use sound to communicate, forage, reproduce, socialize, and navigate a vast and largely dark underwater world. Sound recordings like these open a window into the complex ecology of whales. The rhythmic, structured, and complex sequences of sounds produced by mature male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) can span over nine octaves—more than a piano—and are described as songs. Individual songs, composed of phrases and themes, can last anywhere from two to 30 minutes, and individual whales may sing nearly continuously for up to an entire day.

Our research suggests that variations in the amount of songs from year to year are related to how well the ecosystem has been feeding the whales. Year-to-year changes in the abundance, composition, and spatial distribution of their primary food—tiny shrimp-like krill and small schooling fishes—determine where these whales must travel to find food.

This humpback whale song was recorded on the winter solstice of 2016. For months, the whales have been feeding to pack on energy stores to sustain them on their long-distance migration between foraging habitat off California and breeding habitat off Mexico and Central America—where they mate, birth calves, and begin rearing young. During winter, we continue to hear many songs from whales that are still feeding in the Monterey Bay region and whales that are migrating past Monterey Bay on their way south.

As you hear each note of whale song, it is being painted along the left margin of the video. This scientific visualization of sound is called a spectrogram. It represents the intensity of sound in color in relation to time along the horizontal axis and frequency (pitch) along the vertical axis.

Learn more: https://www.mbari.org/team/ocean-soun...

Video editors: John Ryan, Kyra Schlining
Production team: John Ryan, Kyra Schlining, Susan von Thun
Humpback whale photo courtesy of Elliott Hazen (NMFS Permit 21678)