科学家:北极露脊鲸是“北极的爵士歌手”

Scientists: Bowhead Whales Are 'Jazz Singers of the Arctic'

Bowhead whales have many unusual qualities. They can live for 200 years. They have the largest mouths of any living animal, yet only eat very small ocean creatures through a filter-feeding process. They have the thickest blubber, or fat covering, of any whale.

Another interesting quality? Their underwater communication style has scientists comparing them to “jazz” artists.

Researchers this week published findings of an intensive study of the vocalizations, or whale singing, of about 300 bowhead whales. The population they studied lived in waters east of Greenland.

The researchers made the recordings³ from 2010 to 2014. They used an underwater microphone to gather the largest-ever collection of bowhead sounds.

The recordings show many kinds of vocal² sounds that changed often. The researchers identified 184 different songs within the population.

Whales use sound to get around, communicate, hunt for food and find mates. Sound travels easily underwater.

Among the world’s whales, only bowhead and humpback whales produce a wide variety of songs. Other filter-feeding baleen⁴ whales, like the blue, fin¹ and minke whales, produce much simpler songs. And their songs stay nearly the same each year.Kate Stafford is an oceanographer at the University of Washington. She described humpback songs as very orderly, like classical music. But the songs of bowhead whales are freer, she said. They do not appear to follow a clear set of rules. Stafford and other scientists compared the bowheads’ songs to jazz music.

“Bowhead whales are the jazz singers of the Arctic. You don’t know what they’re going to do,” she told the Associated Press.

Scientists think only male bowhead whales sing and that they are singing to find a mate. And the males “improvise” their songs to attract females. Improvisation⁵ in jazz means to perform a part of a song without preparation.

Kit⁶ Kovacs is a scientist with the Norwegian Polar Institute and Norway’s University Centre in Svalbard. She said whales sing to show “readiness to mate.”

“The song is usually only performed by males to communicate both with other males – ‘I am bigger, stronger, et cetera…— and to females — ‘I am big, strong and highly motivated,’” Kovacs told the Reuters news agency.

Kovacs described the bowheads’ sounds as “highly varied⁷.” Some sound “haunting,” she said. Others sound “wild.”

The research was published Wednesday in Biology Letters. It confirmed that bowheads’ songs changed completely within and between years, Stafford said.

Stafford admits that the whales’ jazzy sounds are not for everyone.

“I find the songs to be quite beautiful, but some people compare them to fingernails on a chalkboard,” Stafford told the AP.

One of Stafford’s favorite bowhead songs has repeated sounds of “woo-woo-woo.” Sometimes, the scientist said, she will listen to the songs through her cell phone just to enjoy them.

“They’re quite funny,” Stafford said.

I’m Phil Dierking.

Words in This Story

filter - v. to pass (something, such as a gas or liquid) through a filter to remove something unwanted?

vocalizations - n. to express (something) by speaking words

baleen - n. whalebone.

jazz - n. a type of American music with lively rhythms and melodies that are often made up by musicians as they play?

microphone - n. a device into which people speak or sing in order to record their voices or to make them sound louder?

motivated - adj. to have a lot of reason to do something

fingernails on a chalkboard - idiom. referring to an extremely annoying, unpleasant uncomfortably loud sound or noise.?

variety - n. a number or collection of different things or people

1 fin   

n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼

参考例句：

• They swim using a small fin on their back.它们用背上的小鳍游动。
• The aircraft has a long tail fin.那架飞机有一个长长的尾翼。

2 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

3 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

4 baleen   

n.鲸须

参考例句：

• Other baleen whales have splash guards too,but not like this.一些须鲸物种头顶也有护住喷水孔的构造，但并不长成这样。
• Baleen whales often appear in this region. Be careful!这一带经常有须鲸出没，要注意安全啊。

5 improvisation   

n.即席演奏(或演唱)；即兴创作

参考例句：

• a free-form jazz improvisation 自由创作的爵士乐即兴演出
• Most of their music was spontaneous improvisation. 他们的大部分音乐作品都是即兴创作的。

6 kit   

n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物

参考例句：

• The kit consisted of about twenty cosmetic items.整套工具包括大约20种化妆用品。
• The captain wants to inspect your kit.船长想检查你的行装。

7 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。