Sperm Whales May Be Talking About Us

Sperm whales alter their communication with each other when ships are nearby, a new study suggests. A four-year study of 15 sperm whales off the Caribbean island of Dominica found that their trademark click patterns—known as codas—shift noticeably when boat noise enters the mix, revealing a faster tempo and a different mix of click types, reports the Guardian. Researchers with the Cetacean Translation Initiative, or Project Ceti, say the coda and "vowel" changes are so consistent they can infer the presence of ships from the whales' calls alone.

"This research begs the question: Are whales talking about the ships, or is it an impact on their voices because the ships are around?" says David Gruber of Project Ceti. One theory is that the loud noise from the ships might be making the whales raise their voices in a sense, as humans would have to do in a noisy nightclub, notes Popular Science. The work, published in Ecological Informatics, builds on earlier findings that tightly spaced clicks resemble two vowel-like sounds, "aaaa" and "iiii." The whales use more of the a-sounds when the boats are near, per National Geographic.