Acoustic monitoring on a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) feeding ground shows continual singing into late Spring.

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
• Main Authors: Clark, Christopher W, Clapham, Phillip J
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: Research Article; Humpback Whale; Megaptera novaeangliae
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691688; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15293859; https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2699

Singing by males is a major feature of the mating system of humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae (Borowski). Although a few songs have been opportunistically recorded on the whales' high-latitude feeding grounds, singing in these regions was thought to be only sporadic. We report results from the first continuous acoustic monitoring of a humpback whale feeding ground (off Cape Cod, MA, USA) in spring. Using autonomous sea-floor recording systems, we found singing on a daily basis over the entire 25 day monitoring period, from 14 May to 7 June 2000. For much of the period, song was recorded 24 h per day. These results, combined with evidence for aseasonal conceptions in whaling catch data, suggest that the humpback whale breeding season should no longer be considered as confined to lower-latitude regions in winter. Rather, we suggest breeding extends geographically and temporally onto feeding grounds into at least spring and early summer. Singing at these times represents either low-cost opportunistic advertising by (perhaps relatively few) males to court females that failed to conceive during the winter, and/or possibly an intrasexual display.