Animal World

For Princes of Whales, the choice of life is: to sing and attract more mates, or to be quiet and get fat :).

Reseachers at the University of Sydney have tracked a population of humpback whales during the annual migration from low-latitude breeding areas to Antarctic feeding grounds. Using hydrophones to capture their song along with land-based observations, they calculated the swimming speed and singing status of each whale. While non-singing whales averaged 4 kilometres per hour, singers - which are always male - moseyed along at only 2.5 km/h.

A few singers were clocked at around 15 km/h, showing that it’s not impossible to sing and swim fast. So why slow down? It could be a strategy to squeeze a bit more breeding into the season. Slowing down lets the singer be heard by a procession of passing females. “It effectively gives them a larger audience,” says Noad, one of the researchers. Males that sing swim more slowly than those that don’t, possibly ending up with less time in the feeding grounds to fatten up for the next winter. On the other hand, singers may attract more mates.