@mbari_news: It's official, #WhaleSongWednesdays is a thing 🐳✨️⁠ ⁠ 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. ⁠ ⁠ This humpback whale song was recorded during the winter of 2023. These whales have been packing on energy stores for months, which they must do to make it through a long-distance migration between their foraging habitat off California and breeding habitat off Mexico and Central America—where they mate, birth calves, and begin rearing young. ⁠ ⁠ During winter, the whales' song occurrence continues at a high level. We hear from whales still foraging in the Monterey Bay region and those migrating past Monterey Bay on their way south. This particular recording is only a single song rather than repeated iterations of a song. ⁠ ⁠ As you hear each note of the whale song, it is 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.⁠ ⁠ Head over to our YouTube channel to listen to our newest whale song playlist with hours of these spectacular sounds! #MBARI #ocean #Science #whales

MBARI

Open In TikTok:

Region: US

Wednesday 26 February 2025 20:49:23 GMT