It turns out that you don’t really need the Internet for a song to go viral. It happens every year with humpback whales. A new song starts off the coast of Australia and within a year it’s raced across much of the Pacific Ocean -- transmitted from whale to whale.
Humpback whales transmit their songs from whale to whale. Credit: Wikipedia.Humpbacks are some of the most vocal creatures on the planet. Since the 1960s, marine biologists have recorded the songs of hundreds of them, and they all seem to come from males. The songs follow the same type of structure as human songs -- a series of notes grouped together into phrases, which repeat several times to form a theme. Individual songs usually go on for several minutes, and a single whale can sing for hours at a time.
The singing is most common during the breeding season, so it’s possible that the songs are attempts to attract females or warn off other males. But some research suggests it could also be a type of male bonding -- two singers often hang out together for a while before heading their separate ways. And research also shows that singers often accompany a female and calf -- perhaps as a sort of protection, or perhaps to curry favor for the next breeding season.
All the males in a group sing the same song, but the song changes from year to year. And in an amazing bit of social interaction, the songs are passed from group to group. In a year, they cross thousands of miles -- amazing “tweets” without the help of the Internet.
