Whale songs are far removed from the singing that humans are used to. Unlike our musical sounds, those produced by whales are a complex range of vocalisations that include groans, clicks and whistles and that can sound like anything from the mooing of a cow to the twitter of a bird. These vocalisations can be so powerful that they can be heard as far as 10km (6 miles) away, and can last for half an hour at a time.But while they may not be exactly dancing material, whale songs are critical for communication: between males and females during mating, or among a school of whales migrating.For researchers, these complex sounds are a window into whale behaviour, even if humans don’t yet know exactly how to decode them.The frequency of songs and their intensity can signal various things: an abundance of food, for example. In recent studies, however, researchers have been alarmed to find that blue whales, the largest whales and, indeed, the largest mammals on Earth, have stopped singing at specific times.Their eerie quietness, scientists say, is a signal that ocean life is changing fundamentally. The most recent study, conducted by scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California in the US and publis …
