A Whale in Hawaii Sang a Song ‘So Powerful’ That Experts Felt Its Vibrations Through Their Feet

Whales are some of the most enigmatic creatures in the oceans that depend on their sense of sound to communicate and mate with their fellows. Researchers studying the carcasses of stranded whales found that whales have a specialized voice box that enables them to sing underwater. Unlike a human’s voice box, whales have a U-shaped tissue cushioned by fat and muscle. By manipulating the air pressure and rhythmic contractions in this tissue, whales produce sounds, oftentimes singing. Recently, the researchers of the Pacific Whale Foundation (@pacificwhalefoundation) captured a humpback whale singing in Hawaii. The underwater footage, though mainly a blank shot of the glistening blue water, contains a hauntingly surreal sound that is certain to make anyone’s hair crawl.

The song was recorded by the researchers during a recent vessel survey with the University of Hawai‘i Marine Mammal Research Program. “The song was so powerful, researchers could feel the vibrations through their feet,” the researchers exclaimed in the caption of the underwater footage. The song sounds somewhere between a wolf’s howl and a cow’s moo, traversing a complex sequence of moans, groans, chirps, grunts, blasts, shrieks, and squeals. At times, the song becomes electric, as if vibrating like a motor, as the researchers also described. About two-thirds of the way into the footage, the singing whale even makes a brief appearance, seemingly blurry behind the veil of blue waters.

The organization described that this “soulful performer” was a male humpback whale since “only male humpbacks sing.” Explaining why humpback whales sing, they said, “Humpback whale songs evolve over time, spreading through cultural exchange as whale populations interact. Parts of their songs can travel vast distances across oceans, revealing just how connected these magnificent animals are on a global scale.” According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), whales’ singing can be described as “pulsed calls,” “whistles,” or “clicks.” They use singing as a means to communicate, even to determine whether the other animal is friendly or predatory. Usually sounding like screams or squeaks to humans, their songs also have different "dialects."

“When we listen long enough and when we look, we find more complexity in these animal communication systems,” noted whale biologist Shane Gero of Carleton University in a recent study published in Science. His study found that the songs of humpback whales have an unexpected similarity to those of humans. Their statistical structure is quite similar to that of human language. The findings don’t suggest that whales have a language, where combinations of sounds have fixed meaning and join together in grammatical structures. Whatever be the reason, hearing a whale sing is a remarkable step, no less fascinating than receiving a signal from an alien.

The Pacific Whale Foundation has been studying humpback whales “both North Pacific and South Pacific humpback whale populations that feed in icy waters around Alaska and the Antarctic, then migrate to warmer waters (Hawai‘i and Queensland, Australia) in the winter to breed, give birth and care for their young,” according to their website. The foundation’s researchers have found that the most common threats humpback whales experience include “bycatch, marine plastic pollution, climate change, unsustainable tourism and vessel collisions with marine animals.”