Whale ancestors developed nostrils on top of their heads 50 million years ago, but there are more unusual things about this animal: it likes to sing. Why? The secret seems to be in the larynx.
Studying the voices of live whales as they roam the ocean is a huge challenge, recalls .
However, it is known that they like to sing – even more than is good for them, since make it difficult to hear between themselves and shipsbecause they sing at such high frequencies.
In a published in Nature in early 2024, scientists took advantage of a rare opportunity to examine the voice boxes, or larynxes, of three baleen whales — a humpback, a sei and a minke — that washed ashore dead on beaches, but were not yet very decomposed.
The larynx of baleen whales is a unique organ consisting of long cylinders linked in a rigid U shape that pushes against a pad of fat. When scientists blew air into the larynx, they found that it caused the cushion to vibrate and generate low-frequency sounds.
It is due to this phenomenon that whales are able to sing without choking on water.
The researchers also built a 3D computer model of the larynx of the whale and simulated the way sounds are controlled by muscles.
This showed an incredible fact: Whale songs overlap in frequency with the noises made by ship propellers.
Whales have no way of adjusting the pitch of their voices to avoid colliding with the underwater sounds produced by ships. They pass by, they sing anyway.
