Sound Playback Experiments with Southern Right Whales ( Eubalaena australis )

A variety of sound recordings were played to southern right whales. Whales approached the loudspeaker and made frequent sounds in response to recordings of other southern right whales, but swam away and made relatively few sounds in response to playbacks of water noise, 200-hertz tones, and humpback...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Clark, Christopher W., Clark, Jane M.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 1980
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.207.4431.663
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.207.4431.663
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Summary:A variety of sound recordings were played to southern right whales. Whales approached the loudspeaker and made frequent sounds in response to recordings of other southern right whales, but swam away and made relatively few sounds in response to playbacks of water noise, 200-hertz tones, and humpback whale sounds. Thus it appears that southern right whales can differentiate between conspecific sounds and other sounds.