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Humpback whale song: who sings?

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Abstract

While on their winter breeding grounds, male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) produce long sequences of structured vocalizations called song, whose function within the mating system is still unresolved. Here we ask which males sing. Is it only those sexually mature, as typifies songbirds and some lekking ungulates in which vocalizations during the rut are restricted to mature males? Or do immature males join in the chorus? Using an underwater videogrammetric technique, we measured the body lengths of 87 humpback singers in the Hawaiian winter grounds. Applying length and sexual maturity relationships for North Pacific humpbacks as determined by biologists aboard twentieth century Japanese whaling vessels, we found that singer lengths ranged from 10.7 to 13.6 m, with 15 % of lengths indicative of probable sexual immaturity (length < 11.3 m, p [maturity] < 0.5). We interpret this broad participation of males as a lekking aggregation and the asynchronous singing chorus as an instance of by-product mutualism. The participation of many singers yields a heightened signal level that may attract more females to the singing area. Sexually mature males can benefit through access to more females. Immature males may gain deferred benefits through increased opportunities to learn and practice the social, behavioral, and acoustical skills and conventions of the winter grounds that they can apply usefully in later years.

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Notes

  1. Much of the Soviet whaling was illegal, both through the indiscriminate taking of whales smaller than the minimum IWC schedule (35 ft or 10.7 m) and through the continuation of humpback whaling beyond 1965, the last IWC approved year for the North Pacific. Ironically, the data are nonetheless useful in that there is no selection bias for size, although the use of bins rather than reporting individual whale lengths limits that usefulness somewhat. A possible constraint with the Japanese data is that the reported lengths of some whales might have been “stretched” to meet the IWC schedule.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the many students, interns, and volunteers who assisted in data collection, processing, and analysis. Comments by Philip Clapham were particularly useful for clarifying the Soviet whaling data. This work was supported through contributions from members of The Dolphin Institute (TDI), TDI participants, Earthwatch volunteers, LeBurta Atherton, The Homeland Foundation, the Robles Foundation, the Seto Foundation, the LeBurta Atherton Foundation, Jeff Stone and the Resort Group, Apple Computer Inc., Dee Kiamy, John Cook, and Pete Ellis.

Ethical standards

Data were obtained under United States National Marine Fisheries Service Permits 223, 576, 810, 941, 707, and 107 and annual State of Hawaii Scientific Permits. The research was approved under University of Hawaii Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee protocols 93–052 through 93-052-9 as well as 99–002.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Louis M. Herman

  2. The Dolphin Institute, Honolulu, HI, 96814, USA

    Louis M. Herman, Adam A. Pack, Scott S. Spitz, Elia Y. K. Herman & Kathryn Rose

  3. Departments of Psychology and Biology, University of Hawaii at Hilo, Hilo, HI, USA

    Adam A. Pack

  4. Department of Land and Natural Resources, State of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Elia Y. K. Herman

  5. Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Siri Hakala

  6. Hawaii Association for Marine Education and Research, Inc., Lahaina, HI, USA

    Mark H. Deakos

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  1. Louis M. Herman
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Correspondence to Louis M. Herman.

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Communicated by V. M. Janik

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Herman, L.M., Pack, A.A., Spitz, S.S. et al. Humpback whale song: who sings?. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 1653–1663 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1576-8

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