1 Submitted to the J. Acoustic Society of America A. Walker et. al (1996). Singing maps Singing maps: Classification of whalesong units using a self-organizing feature mapping algorithm

• Main Authors: Ashley Walker, Robert Fisher, Nicholas Mitsakakis
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Humpback whales (megaptera novaean; Payne; Humpback Whale
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.650.1008; http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/MY_DAI_OLD_FTP/rp833.pdf

1Humpback whales also make a variety of social sounds that are heard most often when the whales are in-teracting in groups [Thompson et. al 1977]. These sounds appear to be subject to different rules from those in-fluencing songs. Moreover, both genders make social sounds whereas almost all observed singing humpbacks have been male [Payne & Payne 1985]. The role that song plays in the lives of humpback whales is unclear. Traditionally it was believed be purely a cultural phenomena playing a part in courtship analogous to bird song. However, the low-frequency, repetitive, patterned vocalizations of the humpback whale may also/instead be used for environmental sensing [Frazer et. al 1996]. In this paper we refer to these vocalizations as "song" for historical reasons.