Songs of Humpback Whales: The Australian Perspective

• Main Author: Cato, Douglas H.
• Other Authors: DEFENCE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ORGANISATION CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1991
• Subjects: Biology; Voice Communications; *WHALES; *ANIMAL COMMUNICATION; REPRINTS; DISTRIBUTED DATA PROCESSING; SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO; CASE STUDIES; DATA ACQUISITION; PATTERN RECOGNITION; ANIMAL MIGRATION; NONLINEAR PROPAGATION ANALYSIS; BEHAVIOR; ACOUSTIC SIGNATURES; SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE; AUSTRALIA; UNDERWATER SOUND; MARINE BIOLOGICAL NOISE; HUMPBACK WHALES; HUMPBACK WHALE SONGS; SOUND TYPES; Humpback Whale
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA274789; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA274789

Detailed study of the 1982/83 song off the east coast demonstrated a stereotyped, repeating song and established rules that governed the song for that period. These rules are broadly similar to those established in the Northern Hemisphere with differences in detail. The sounds that make up the song are also different. The song has changed progressively with time. Studies in australian waters provide a somewhat different perspective to those of the northern hemisphere because of differences in the environment and the access to whales. From our observations, the integrity of the song appears to be maintained over large distances (1500KMS) of the migration paths, although the sample size is small. However, songs off the east coast are distinctively different to those of the west coast