Chapter 1: How do sperm whales communicate like humans?
Now, believe it or not, that is the sound of sperm whales talking to each other. New research conducted on how they communicate suggests we may have more in common than we thought with these giants of the sea. Patterns like human speech have been identified in recordings of sperm whales talking to each other.
The findings suggest that we not only share similarities in how we communicate, but also that they have a sophisticated language system they use to interact with one another. To tell us more about the research and what it means, I'm joined by underwater cameraman and documentary maker, Ken O'Sullivan.
Chapter 2: What recent research reveals about sperm whale communication patterns?
Ken, good morning. David, how are you? I'm very well, thanks. Now, up to now, we wouldn't have thought we had a lot in common with sperm whales, but the research shows that's not actually the case. Explain to us what the researchers have found.
Chapter 3: What sophisticated language system do sperm whales use?
Well, they're finding discernible patterns. After recording thousands of hours of communication clicks between sperm whales in Dominica, which there was a lot of animals there, they're finding these discernible patterns between the animals when they're effectively speaking to each other. and that some of those discernible patterns are repeated. Now, what does that mean?
So if you didn't speak English and you recorded my last two sentences, you'd say discernible patterns, discernible patterns repeated.
Chapter 4: How do sperm whales utilize sound for navigation?
You'd say, oh, there are sounds there that are being reused and reused in different orders. And what they're saying is that if you break a language down to its most fundamental parts, so you're looking at an alphabet or you're looking at syllables, consonants, vowels, etc. And they're hypothesizing that, well, they're not so far.
First of all, that shows that these animals have a sophisticated communication between each other. And they're then hypothesizing because we have a shared ancestry, maybe 90 or 100 million years ago.
Chapter 5: What challenges do sperm whales face from human activities?
that it's a language and that they evolved in a similar but different way to us in terms of how they communicate with each other.
Okay. We're going to have a listen now, Ken, to a recording that you made of sperm whales a few years ago off the coast of Ireland. Let's take a listen. now Ken tell us a little bit more about that clip what were we hearing there
Chapter 6: How does military sonar impact sperm whale communication?
Yeah, so we were about 65 kilometres west of Mayo at the edge of the Rockall trough, which is the start of the real deep water in the Atlantic. It goes down to 2,000, 3,000 metres. And we had a spotter plane searching the area for us because it's a vast area and they found two sperm whales. So they gave us the coordinates, but by the time we got there, 12 or 13 kilometres, the animals had dived.
So I put our hydrophone, underwater microphone, into the water and that's what we recorded.
Chapter 7: Could sperm whales have their own form of alphabet?
So they're clearly sperm whale clicks that are going on there. There's also a whistle, which is probably from a pilot whale. And they use those clicks. They use the sounds for two reasons. One is to echolocation, which is to see the underwater world, to navigate the underwater world.
Chapter 8: Where can you go to see whales in their natural habitat?
Because if you think anybody's ever been in the water, you've ever been in the sea with, you know, goggles or dive mask. In Ireland, it's a good example. You might see 10 meters on the best days. Most days it's two or three meters. If you came out of your house in the morning and the fog was so thick, you could only see a few meters. Well, your sight isn't of much use to you.
And what's happened is that these animals over millions of years have evolved and developed really sophisticated acoustics. So they put these clicks out through their skulls, all whales and dolphins do it. And then they listen for the echo that comes back. And based on that echo, they can paint a picture, an x-ray type image in their brain to show what's there.
So they use it to navigate, to find their prey, but they also use the clicks to speak to each other.
it's what you're hearing there yeah sorry to cut across you how far away are the whales from you when you're picking that up
Difficult to know. Our equipment wasn't good enough to measure distance, but the area we were in was 3,000 metres deep and they actually have been found. It's known that they dive down to 3,000 metres to hunt in the deep ocean. And remembering that once you go below 600 metres, you're in total darkness in the ocean.
So their acoustic senses and their hearing is the only thing they can use to navigate.
And how exactly are they making those sounds?
So all whales and dolphins, they pass air from their lungs up through the nasal cavities. And they've got something called phonic lips, phonic being of speech, of sound. And then that pushes the click out through their skulls. Now, sperm whales are the absolute grand masters of this because they're the largest heads of any animal that ever lived.
the skull has evolved in a shape that is optimal for pushing out these pulses and it's filmed with a waxy liquid called spermaceti so a few years ago I was chatting with the great um BBC cameraman Doug Allen sadly passed away recently and you know I was asking his advice for swimming with sperm whales because I was hoping to do it in Ireland and he told me he'd been in the water with one and it was as it was scanning him it felt like his chest was going to collapse because
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