Encounter With Humpback Whales Reveals Potential for Nonhuman Intelligence Communicationhttps://phys.org/news/2023-12-encounter-humpback-whales-reveals-potential.htmlA team of scientists from the SETI Institute, University of California Davis and the Alaska Whale Foundation, had a close encounter with a non-human (aquatic) intelligence. The Whale-SETI team has been studying humpback whale communication systems in an effort to develop intelligence filters for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.In response to a recorded humpback "contact" call played into the sea via an underwater speaker, a humpback whale named Twain approached and circled the team's boat while responding in a conversational style to the whale's "greeting signal." During the 20-minute exchange, Twain responded to each playback call and matched the interval variations between each signal.
A description and analysis of the encounter appears in a recent issue of the journal
PeerJ, titled
"Interactive Bioacoustic Playback as a Tool for Detecting and Exploring Nonhuman Intelligence: 'Conversing' with an Alaskan Humpback Whale.""We believe this is the first such communicative exchange between humans and humpback whales in the humpback 'language,'" said lead author Dr. Brenda McCowan of U.C. Davis.
"Humpback whales are extremely intelligent, have complex social systems, make tools—nets out of bubbles to catch fish, and communicate extensively with both songs and social calls," said co-author Dr. Fred Sharpe of the Alaska Whale Foundation.
Similar to studying Antarctica as a proxy for Mars, the Whale-SETI team is studying intelligent, terrestrial, non-human communication systems to develop filters to apply to any extraterrestrial signals received. The mathematics of information theory to quantify communicative complexity—(for example rule structure embedded in a received message) will be utilized.
Brenda McCowan et al,
Interactive bioacoustic playback as a tool for detecting and exploring nonhuman intelligence: "conversing" with an Alaskan humpback whale,
PeerJ (2023)
https://peerj.com/articles/16349/------------------------------------------------------------------
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Sperm Whales Found to Live In Large, Matrilineally Based Clanshttps://phys.org/news/2024-01-sperm-whales-large-matrilineally-based.htmlA sperm whale expert at Dalhousie University, in Canada, has found evidence showing that sperm whales form large matrilineally based clans that have their own coda dialect. In his paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Hal Whitehead describes how he, working with multiple colleagues over many years, used underwater microphones to listen in on conversations among the whales.
Prior research has shown that whales communicate with one another using sequences of clicks that have come to be known as codas. Prior research has also shown that most whale species have distinctive variations among groups that are unique to members of their group—or clan, as Whitehead calls them.
In analyzing sperm codas from whales all across the Pacific Ocean, the researchers found evidence that they form matrilineally based units of approximately 10 females and their offspring—such units, he notes, form the basic elements of larger clans.
The researchers have also found evidence that the whales form clans with as many as 20,000 members. Within such clans, members interact, look out for one another, help raise offspring, and ward off attacks by orcas.They also all communicate using the same dialect. All sperm whales in the Pacific speak the same language, Whitehead notes, but each clan has its own unique dialect. Researchers have also found that while clan territory may overlap, whales from different clans do not interact with one another.
Whitehead and colleagues also found that there are seven clans in the Pacific Ocean, adding up to approximately 300,000 whales. Each of the clans was found to be based almost entirely around females and their young—the males exist on the periphery and appear to serve only as a means for reproduction.
The researchers have also found evidence of clan-wide communications, noting the observation of debates that involved whales apparently looking for a consensus on things like travel destinations. Whitehead concludes that he has come to think of the clans as whale nations, each with their own discernable culture.Hal Whitehead,
Sperm whale clans and human societies,
Royal Society Open Science (2024)
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231353Abstract:
Sperm whale society is structured into clans that are primarily distinguished by vocal dialects, which may be symbolic markers of clan identity. However, clans also differ in non-vocal behaviour. These distinctive behaviours, as well as clan membership itself, are learned socially, largely within matrilines. The clans can contain thousands of whales and span thousands of kilometres. Two or more clans typically use an area, but the whales only socialize with members of their own clan. In many respects the closest parallel may be the ethno-linguistic groups of humans. Patterns and processes of human prehistory that may be instructive in studying sperm whale clans include: the extreme variability of human societies; no clear link between modes of resource acquisition and social structure; that patterns of vocalizations may not map well onto other behavioural distinctions; and that interacting societies may deliberately distinguish their behaviour (schismogenesis). Conversely, while the two species and their societies are very different, the existence of very large-scale social structures in both sperm whales and humans supports some primary drivers of the phenomenon that are common to both species (such as cognition, cooperation, culture and mobility) and contraindicates others (e.g. tool-making and syntactic language).----------------------------------------------------------------
