RE: song learning in humpback whales

From: Vincent Campbell (v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Dec 05 2000 - 14:36:32 GMT

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From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: song learning in humpback whales
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 14:36:32 -0000 
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Thanks for this Dave,

I saw a similar report in the UK news media.

In between the idea that whale songs are mating rituals or sonar
location, I thought someone had postulated that whales were, in effect,
simply humming to themselves?

Whether whale song has meaning or purpose is, of course, irrelevant
to our purposes, only that these two foreign whales caused a rapid
widespread change amongst another population of whales.

I don't buy the sex angle offered as a reason, because it's quite
clear that whales could innovate if they wanted to, since the resident
population has changed its song, and if it enhanced mating chances then
variations would be more widespread and more rapid wouldn't they? Besides,
once they all are singing the same song again any advantage would be rapidly
lost. Also, why didn't the two new whales changes their song to the
dominant song of the region which had the advantage of being far more
widespread?

I guess a key problem with proving the mating angle one way or the
other would be very difficult since there are undoubtedly other aspects that
contribute to mate selection in whales even if the songs are a factor.
After all a cool new song doesn't necessarily override over attributes (e.g.
state of health) in getting a mate (depends how choosy the potentials mates
are I suppose!).

Thought-provoking definitely...

Vincent

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