Talk:Whale vocalization

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 September 2021 and 3 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tdl120300. Peer reviewers: Buginajar, Coffeebeangirl.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

ogg format is obscure

Any way we can get these sounds in mp3 format?

The "freeness" of MP3 is a murky issue at best, so Wikipedians decided to go with OGG which, whilst obscure, is definitely free in every sense. Pcb21| Pete 16:06, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

FAC comments to work on

I think that Animal echolocation needs to be better described in the article, as I understand it this type of communication has only been shown to be the case for dolphins and killer whales. The function of the humbacks song seems, from a scan of recent literature, to be a contentious matter since noone has tested to see if humpback whales listen for and respond to echoes generated by their songs, this may also be the case for other whales. There probably should be some expansion of the tooth and baleen sound production sections, or seperate discussions on other species with well studied songs to address the comprehensivness point, false killer whales for example seem to be the subject of numerous vocalisation studies. A section on the use of whale songs to locate and track whales would also be a good addition to the article, also a descripion of how the sound is measured would be helpful to the reader. --nixie 03:24, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I must have added my comments to the FAc discussion too late, but I still think they are an important issue that should be fixed in the article, so I will copy them here:

Comment. Hmm it looks really good, and I'd like to support, but the structure is a bit confused, and parts of the article are not even about the topic. I'll start with the second part first. The 'Toothed whale sound production' section starts with a sentence saying the sounds they make are not considered whale songs, so why is that section six times longer than the section on 'Baleen whale sound production'? So that section there then a later whole section on the Humpback whale song later is confusing structure wise. What is this article about? Whale songs or whale sounds? In fact I can't see anywhere in the article that it tells me the Humpback is baleen at all, so the prior distinction between baleen sounds and toothed whale sounds is even more disjointed. The other sections don't seem to flow in a logical order either. Further, do only males produce whale songs? - Taxman 14:39, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Capitalisation

That was a really odd revert, Pete. Since when are animal species names in English supposed to be capitalized...?

Peter Isotalo 20:09, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

The thinking is that a species is a proper noun (compare a Common Starling and a common starling). Admittedly the consensus on this fractious but still capitalisation is policy for mammals. See more discussion than you could ever stand to bare in the archives of Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Tree of Life

Should I even bother refering to blue whale and humpback whale, or is that just the opinion of EB? And considering that your example of "common starling" isn't even a proper scientific name (the Latin names are not supposed to be directly translated), I really think you should consider giving in to the tyranny of more serious encyclopedic standards. If anything, it makes the text look really amateurish...

Peter Isotalo 22:50, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. An upper case "Humpback Whale" in the middle of a sentence looks odd to me. CDThieme 23:02, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Convincing me isn't the issue, it is forcing a wider change of policy on which there are lots of positions from lots of people, laid out in the archives of the ToL talk page. Whether we agree on which style guides to follow or not, I think it is easy to agree that we should be consistent across pages, which is I don't want this one to come out-of-sync with all the others. Pcb21| Pete 07:44, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

There is no standard, and it says so on the policy pages, since the "proper noun"-clause is easily overturned by simply looking up any single species name in a dictionary. It's apparantly up to whomever writes the articles (and you're clearly the one taking a stand for your own opinion here, not a policy). Are you even going to comment the use in other encyclopedias?

In the meantime, let me show you an edit that illustrates exactly why your idea is neither consistent nor reasonable. If certain species should be capitalized, then all names of single species should. If you're going to revert it, I'd like to hear some very, very good arguments.

Peter Isotalo 10:58, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

New spectrogram

I made a new spectrogram for this page. I didn' bother trying to keep the wave form (which isn't very informative anyway). Zeimusu | (Talk page) 11:07, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Rubber Blubber Whale?

Is that trivia entry really appropriate? Out of all the hunderds of songs that sample whale song, why is this one important enough to mention? (In fact, I'm just gonna go ahead and take it out.)

Scientific Accuracy

The statement that smell was not effective due to the slow speed of water was changed to slow diffusion of molecules, which is a more accurate description of how the sense of smell actually works. (whereas some ocean currents can be quite fast, compared to wind speeds at the Earth's surface) Similarly, I added the statement about the relative difference in the speed of sound, because it's an important fact when considering underwater communications of any sorts. -- Hao 4:12, 28, Jun 2005 (JST)

Malicious damage

Someone seems to have wiped out the article.

Star Trek?

Whale song was a pivotal plot point in the 4th film 'The Voyage Home'. Would this bit of trivia be suitable to be added somehow? --Djbrianuk 28 June 2005 16:13 (UTC)

good article

i think this is truly worthy of being a featured article 134.121.50.127 28 June 2005 21:30 (UTC)

Confusing use of the term 'whale'

Some dominating contributors (Pcb21 in particular) have insistently refused that killer whale and other dolphins are whales. I disagree, but if that is the majority view it's OK with me. But the use of the term 'whale' needs to be consistent. This article demonstrates it is not. Let us take one example:

"Every toothed whale except the sperm whale has two sets of phonic lips and is thus capable of making two sounds independently."

According to the view of Pcb21 and others the only toothed whale actually is sperm whale. The phrase “Every toothed whale except the sperm whale…” is then completely nonsense since the group is empty. Odd editing rules have become common in this and many related articles. The last is the very odd rule of naming animals by upper case first letter. Blue whale therefore is named 'Blue Whale' while other animals still have to accept their lower case first letter (as for example 'human'). Will somebody take the responsibility of cleaning up? --- Arnejohs 29 June 2005 14:17 (UTC)

It is slightly annoying that you carry on being obtuse (mischaracterizing what I have said, etc) even though it must be months (years?) since we've discussed this and since I spelt out in mind-numbing detail how stupid the English language is, but that I didn't invent it.

As for the capitalization, do whatever the hell you like. It seems like bloody capitalization is the only contribution people make to cetacea (sorry, in your terminology, whale) articles anyway. Pcb21| Pete 29 June 2005 16:18 (UTC)

I refuse to continue any discussion if this is the language of the contributors. In spite of that I still believe in the wiki-project. Hopefully the language and the debate will be less wiki-wiki and more consistent in the future. Meanwhile you may think out an explanation on my question concerning the toothed whales. I did not find that you gave any now. Good luck! --- Arnejohs 29 June 2005 19:04 (UTC)

I'm sorry that doesn't make sense. What does "[..] the debate will be less wiki-wiki and more consistent in the future" mean? What does "I did not find that you gave any now" mean? Pcb21| Pete 29 June 2005 23:36 (UTC)

Too strong statement

It is not necessary to make strong statements like whales "...are much more dependent on sound for communication and sensation than land mammals are" in order to stress that sound is important. It is hard to make comparisons like this and almost impossible to prove it scientifically. It should be enough only to point at echolocating mammals as bats for example. They can hardly survive without their "song". --- Arnejohs 11:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

To Arnejohs: it can be proved scientifically. You only must compare the efectiveness of all senses in sea than in land, then you could appreciatte the difference, independent of the animal who gots that sense. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.53.145.210 (talk) 17:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

Songs

I recall that an issue of National Geographic back in the 1970s included a record containing whale songs. In one part, they speeded up the songs until the low-pitched calls sounded very much like bird songs. I don't what (if any) inferences were drawn, but I found it interesting. On the other hand, if you play it backward, it might say "Paul is dead." --NameThatWorks (talk) 00:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Human singing and whale "song"

While I support a citation and even a quote for the claim that whale song is described as similar to or compared with human singing the removal of the claim on the grounds that it cannot be proved misunderstands the claim.

Without the above claim, there is another issue. The article currently does not ask or answer the question: Why is "whale song" called "song"? Hyacinth (talk) 21:38, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Um, for the same reason birdsong is called song? It sounds like singing. That and, well, imagine how creepy it'd be if we called it "whale howling." They'd never sell a New Age record of that. Nagakura shin8 (talk) 01:35, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing improvements to the Whale song article. Hyacinth (talk) 07:55, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I know. And so I offered my (admittedly somewhat smartass) objections to you "improving" the article by adding completely obvious information. Nagakura shin8 (talk) 08:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Distance

In the "Human Interaction" section, is it said that "whale noises travel up to 3,000,000 km." I have tried to find the corresponding statistic from Cornell University to back this statment up. For a sound to travel three million kilometers, it means that it would have to travel around the world seventy-five times. If the statistic is indeed correct, then I suggest a sentence be added after it that mentions how many times around the world the sound would have to travel to reach 3,000,000 km. This would allow many people to more easily comprehend the huge magnitude of this distance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ScienceMan1 (talk • contribs) 18:38, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Working on this

I am gradually getting more information to fill up the cracks in this article. Feel free to do this yourself, too. ceranthor 12:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Exhale

I found a serious mistake. In the section "Production of sound" # "Mysticete whale sound production", it says, "The process, however, cannot be completely analogous to humans, because whales do not have to exhale in order to produce sound." This implies that humans cannot produce sounds without exhaling, which is false. I just produced some sounds in my mouth without exhaling or inhaling (of course, I couldn't do it for long because humans can't hold their breath very long).--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 01:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Formally

In section "Production of sound" # "Mysticete whale sound production", it says, "Baleen whales (formally called mysticetes)...." I think the "formally" shouldn't be there. "Baleen whale" is a perfectly okay term in formal contexts; in fact, at least one source that I have read says native, Germanic words (such as "baleen whale") are preferable to Latin or Greek borrowings. Plus, "baleen whale" is more transparent semantically. I suggest rewriting "Baleen whales (formally called mysticetes)" as "Baleen whales, or mysticetes,".

Also, the title "Mysticete whale sound production" is redundant. Shorten it to "Mysticete sound production".--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 02:04, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Andrewa (talk) 18:11, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

---

Whale sound → Whale vocalization – Parallelism and clarity. Hyacinth (talk) 09:56, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• Commet not all whale sounds are vocalizations, seemingly the article states that some of them are not produced by use of the voice box, vocal cords, mouth, blowhole, or similar comparable apparatuses. -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:04, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
• Support because the current article scope is about vocalizations, not about the sound of breaching, fluke slapping, chewing, scratching or any other imaginable whale sounds. Binksternet (talk) 05:16, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Hertz

I don't think I understand hertz. It says that humpback whale produce vocalizations of up to 24 kHz and blue whales close to 30 khz and hear as low as 7 hz, but it says that they can't hear the 52 hertz whale. If their hearing range is between 7 and 24,000 hz, why can't they hear 52 hz?

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Whale vocalization/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

In the "Human Interaction" section, is it said that "whale noises travel up to 3,000,000 km." I have tried to find the corresponding statistic from Cornell University to back this statment up. For a sound to travel three million kilometers, it means that it would have to travel around the world seventy-five times. If the statistic is indeed correct, then I suggest a sentence be added after it that mentions how many times around the world the sound would have to travel to reach 3,000,000 km. This would allow many people to more easily comprehend the huge magnitude of this distance.

Substituted at 22:06, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Coded whale songs

Hi! I just bumped into this declassified secret services document which details tentative use by the US Navy of whale sounds to produce coded communications: http://www.governmentattic.org/22docs/NOSCrptProjCOMBO_1980.pdf It takes place in the seventies, so I was wondering if there had been more attempts later on - in which case it might deserve a section in this article... --85.28.111.250 (talk) 10:01, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

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Irrelevant paragraph

Hello, isn't this paragraph: "The migration patterns of blue whales remains unclear. Some populations appear to be resident in habitats of year-round high productivity in some years, while others undertake long migrations to high-latitude feeding grounds, but the extent of migrations and the components of the populations that undertake them are poorly known." irrelevant? I might be wrong but it seems to have nothing to do with whale vocalization, and if it does, it isn't shown how. Any thought? Ulysse Verjus-Tonnelé (talk) 11:59, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Crappy article

Started to redact the sentence that lumps dolphins and other cetaceans with sharks as "fish" but realized whole article not worth wading into. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 04:27, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Featured picture scheduled for POTD

Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Humpbackwhale singing.webm, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for May 3, 2022. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2022-05-03. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:20, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Whale vocalizations are the sounds used by whales for different kinds of communication. Sounds are produced by cetaceans for various purposes by several different mechanisms. Toothed whales produce rapid bursts of high-frequency clicks that are thought to be primarily for echolocation, while the complex sounds of the humpback whale (and some blue whales) are believed to be primarily used in sexual selection. This young humpback whale is singing in the waters of Vavaʻu, Tonga.

Credit: Sylke Rohrlach

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