Listening in on sperm whales
This article is an adaptation of our weekly Animals newsletter that was originally sent out on April 22, 2021. Want this in your inbox? Sign up here.
By Rachael Bale, ANIMALS Executive Editor
Dr. Dolittle. Mowgli. Eliza Thornberry. Speaking to animals is an age-old dream, but it’s so far existed only in the world of fiction.
A big part of it is that even the most intelligent animals don’t communicate with each other in anything that resembles language, according to linguists. But that hasn’t stopped scientists from trying. Koko the gorilla learned American Sign Language, and there’s plenty of evidence that animals and humans can communicate with each other—dogs, domestic pigs, birds called honeyguides—but what about real, true language?
Announced on Monday, an ambitious new project, Project CETI, aims to decode what sperm whales are saying to each other. Sperm whales, like the two pictured above, speak in clicks, which combine into rhythmic series called codas. By recording millions of codas, analyzing them for patterns using machine learning, and linking them to whales’ behaviors, scientists hope to work out what they mean. The team includes experts in biology, linguistics, robotics, and artificial intelligence, and it’s likely the largest interspecies communication effort in history, writes Nat Geo’s Craig Welch.
If any animal communicates in true language, it’s not a stretch to think it’d be sperm whales. They have huge brains, complex social lives, and clear variations among clans that suggest dialects.
So if we figure out how to speak with whales, what would we say?
“We want to know as much as we can,” says David Gruber, a National Geographic Explorer who is helping lead the project, alongside Explorer and sperm whale expert Shane Gero (pictured above in red with Nat Geo photographer and ExplorerBrian Skerry off Dominica. In the image at top, it took whales three weeks to appear for a shot). “What’s the weather doing? Who’s talking to who? What’s happening 10 kilometers away? Is the whale hungry, sick, pregnant, mating? But we want to be as invisible as possible as we do it.”
Read: Groundbreaking effort launched to decode whale language using AI.
Watch: Tune in to Secrets of the Whales, a Disney+ original series from National Geographic that premieres today, Earth Day.
Project CETI was funded in part by the National Geographic Society. Learn more about the Society’s support of ocean Explorers.
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TODAY IN A MINUTE
Discarded PPE killing wildlife: Gloves, masks, and other personal protective equipment have saved human lives during the pandemic, but they’re killing our animals. Birds are using plastic masks, gloves, and packaging from pocket tissues to build their nests, items that their young could ingest or get caught in. A recent analysis uncovered reports of seagulls, penguins, and hedgehogs trapped in face mask ear loops. “In dealing with the health crisis of today, we’re creating an environmental crisis for tomorrow,” says Justine Ammendolia, an ecologist and Nat Geo Explorer. (Above, a perch, found in the Netherlands, is the first documented case of a fish dying in a disposable glove.)
A land of tyrants: If you time-traveled to western North America 67 million years ago, a T. rex probably would be within 15 miles of you. That’s because tens of thousands of T. rex likely lived at a time, and likely billions over the species run, according to new findings. The new study, published in the journal Science, provides estimates of the animal’s population density, Nat Geo’s Michael Greshko reports.
Now it’s otters: A zoo worker who was asymptomatic for the coronavirus is suspected of spreading it to seven Asian small-clawed otters at the Georgia Aquarium. The otters are expected to make a full recovery, aquarium officials told CBS News. The otters never have direct contact with guests and remain separated from them by acrylic barriers.
Casting calls: New York music producer So Wylie has mixed beats to the sounds of Timbaland, OutKast, and The Gorillaz. Recently, she’s discovered a new calling, thanks to the sounds of some backyard artists. Her tracks featuring avian stars such as Barred Owl, Hermit Thrush, and Common Potoo have been a big hit on TikTok, Audubon reports. She’s always had a soft spot for owls but never paid much attention to their call, until recently. “I immediately decided I was going to make a beat with it. I made it that afternoon.”
Saving the owl: Speaking of owls, there are only three known northern spotted ones left in the wild in Canada. To ward off the animals’ possible extinction, the British Columbian and Canadian governments have halted logging for a year in the forests that the owls favor, until there can be more permanent protections, the Guardian reports.
INSTAGRAM PHOTO OF THE DAY
Mood indigo: Who wouldn’t be transfixed by the shadings of the blue crayfish? Nat Geo Explorer Joel Sartore profiled this whiskery crustacean at the Oklahoma Aquarium for the National Geographic Photo Ark project, for which he has taken portraits of more than 11,000 species. The blue crayfish is found in southern Georgia, southeastern Alabama, and Florida in still bodies of water as well as rushing rivers and streams. This video was liked by more than 1.3 million people on our Instagram page.
See: The world’s most radiant animals
IN A FEW WORDS
The problem with trendy dogs is that they’re discarded when the next trend emerges.
Madeline Bernstein, Author, Designer Dogs: An Exposé, From: The very cute, totally disturbing tale of the American ‘it’ dog
THE BIG TAKEAWAY
Roll over, play dead: It's not just the Virginia opossum that goes belly up—several birds, sharks, and insects do too. In general, scientists don’t know enough about this intriguing behavior, Christine Peterson reports for Nat Geo. But animals fake it not only to escape predators—some play dead for food or sex.
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THE LAST GLIMPSE
A modern-day ark: For decades, two communities along the shores of a Kenya lake warred over cattle, land, and water. But an outside force brought them together—a rescue of some of the world’s dwindling number of Rothschild’s giraffes. The rescue came after rising lake levels from heavy rains threatened an island refuge, Annie Roth reports in the May issue of National Geographic. (Above, in this photograph by Nat Geo Explorer Ami Vitale, rescuers ferry a giraffe to a newly built sanctuary, using a homemade barge.)
This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard and Monica Williams, with photo selections by Jen Tse. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Happy Earth Day, and thanks for reading.
