Marine biologists have long been busy researching how whales communicate, and the ways in which they communicate with each other may be more complex than scientists previously thought.
A new study in the journal Nature Communications revealed similarities between whale language and human vocalizations, after examining a group of sperm whales in the waters surrounding the Caribbean island of Dominica, and analyzing their calls.
According to the study, the researchers explained that sperm whales, which have the largest brains of any animal species on Earth, can combine and modify different clicks and rhythms to create complex calls, similar to human language.
In addition, the team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who conducted the study confirmed that the symbols of sperm whales show deeper complexities than the identity of the caller, yet the information about the calls is still undetermined.
The study's authors write that sperm whale vocalizations are more expressive and organized than previously thought, and are constructed from a volume that roughly includes symbols that are more distinct in size.
By analyzing the "CODAS" of about 60 sperm whales, researchers have identified the basic elements of the "vocal alphabet" that they believe sperm whales use to communicate.
The interactive "coda" choruses led researchers to believe that the sperm whales were engaging in a dialogue that could be compared to a human conversation or Morse code transmission.
The authors also show that sperm whale vocalizations exhibit complexity on two different time scales: a fine time scale that defines the structure of each individual syllable, and a longer time scale that defines the overall structure of the interactive exchange across codes within the chorus.
While the communicative function of many codes remains an open question, the results of the study show that the sperm whale's communication system is, in principle, capable of representing a large space of potential meanings, using mechanisms similar to those used in human voice production and representation systems.
