Another fascinating article about sperm whales!!! The idea that sperm whales share some form of sophisticated communication is not a New Age Theory... At 17 pounds, the sperm whale has brains that are five times the size of humans; its the largest brain ever to have know to have existed on Earth. The sperm whales neocortex, which governs higher-level functions in humans such as conscious thought, future planning, and language, is estimated to be about six times larger than humans. Sperm whales also have spindle cells, the long and highly developed brain structures that neurologists have long associated with speech and feelings of compassion, love, suffering, and intuition — those things that make humans human. Sperm whales not only have spindle cells, but they had them in far greater concentration than humans. Furthermore, scientific evidence suggest that they evolved them more than 15 million years before us. Sperm whales are the loudest animals on earth. Their vocalizations are loud enough to be heard several hundred miles away, and possibly around the globe. At their maximum level of 236 decibels, these clicks are louder than two thousand pounds of TNT exploding two hundred feet away from you, and much louder than the space shuttle taking off from two hundred and fifty feet away. Sperm whale clicks could not only blow out human eardrums from hundreds of feet away, but vibrate a human body to pieces. The extraordinary power of clicks lets whales use them to perceive an intimately detailed view of their environment from great distances. They can detect a ten-inch-long squid at a distance of more than a thousand feet and a human from more than a mile away. Sperm whales’ echolocation is the most precise and powerful form of biosonar ever discovered. Not only are sperm whale vocalizations extremely loud; they are also incredibly organized. They sound unremarkable to the human ear — something like the tack-tack-tack of a few dozen typewriters — but when slowed down and viewed as a sound wave on a spectrogram, clicks reveal an incredibly complex collection of shorter clicks woven within them. Inside one click is a series of smaller clicks, inside those smaller clicks yet even smaller clicks, and so on, each unfolding like a Russian nesting doll. These communication patterned clicks of sperm whales are called codas and one wonders if we can relate to this with possible human learning and our language. Maybe it is similar to how humans learn the ABCs using song, breaking down a long string of letters into rhythm & patterned groups (i.e., ABCD, EFG, HIJK, LMNOP, QRS, TUV, WX, Y and Z) that are called codas in the sperm whale language. Anyway, all fascinating and still so much to learn from all of our animal life that bounds our earth and in our oceans... If interested in learning more about sperm whales language, please read on: outsideonline/outdoor-adventure/nature/The-Freedivers-Who-Eavesdrop-on-Whales.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tweet For more information Sperm Whales and the viewing of a breathtaking video these whales echolocating & communicating in codas by Sally Bartel in Dominica, see: savethewhales.org/sperm.html
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 05:04:32 +0000
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