8 ms·
52-hertz whale
- gaur 11y ago> They speculate that it could be malformed, or a hybrid of a blue whale and another species. Are there whale species that have calls significantly higher than 50 Hz? Any ungulate experts here who can comment?
- matteisn 11y agoOrcas in the form of clicking sounds and humpback whales, who can sing in ranges as high as 8000Hz. However, these calls are produced via an entirely different vocalization method.
- gaur 11y agoYeah, certainly orcas can make some pretty high-pitched squeaks. But I'm guessing they can't interbreed with blue whales. I guess I find the blue whale + fin whale hypothesis a little odd (why would the hybrid have a call that's higher in frequency than either of the original species'?), but I don't have the expertise to comment on it.
- sandworm101 11y agoHybrids don't always get averaged traits. Take my dog, a mutt. She is bigger than both her pure-bred parents, taller by more than an inch. In big cats a tigon, a lion-tiger cross, is bigger than either. The principal even holds true for humans. Obama, of mixed race, is unsurprisingly taller than both parents. This is sometimes called hybrid vigour. My point is that a cross between two different animals doesn't always result in something in the middle. This crossed whale may be very different than either parent.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago> In big cats a tigon, a lion-tiger cross, is bigger than either I don't think this is right. The hybrid with a lion father and tiger mother is the huge one, but the father comes first in the name of the hybrid; tigons (male tiger / female lion) aren't so large. The reason for the difference is that male lions brand their offspring's DNA with the urge to grow large, while female lions counter with the opposite urge. For a lion/lion pairing, this balances out, but tigers don't have the same war between the sexes going on, and the maternal tiger genetic contribution is defenseless against the paternal lion one. Humans, by the way, do something similar: the same genetic defect causes "Prader-Willi syndrome" if it came from the father, and "Angelman syndrome" if it came from the mother.
- sandworm101 11y agoOrca are not whales. Technically, they are really big dolphins. They are in the delphinidae family (dolphins) which explains why they look/act/sound/move so differently than other "whales".
- robotmlg 11y agoThey're still order cetacea though, which is then split into baleen whales and toothed whales, which is where dolphins and orcas are found.
- sandworm101 11y agoBut not all cetaceans are whales. If orca are whales, then so too are the other dolphins. "Whale" is really a lay term covering the really big aquatic mammals. A whale shark certainly isn't a whale, but the term is still used there in the common name because of the association with size. Flipper wasn't a whale.
- tilt_error 11y agoThat makes sense, thinking of the whale sharks.
- rosser 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale See, specifically, the sub-heading on Odontocetes — literally, "toothed whale". You appear to be operating with the category that "whale" is wholly and exhaustively synonymous with "baleen whale". You're wrong.
- sandworm101 11y agoFrom the same wikipedia article... "They [whales] are an informal grouping within the infraorder Cetacea, usually excluding dolphins and porpoises. "
- selfsimilar 11y agoI think you meant cetacean expert. Which I'm not, but I know a whale's not an ungulate :)
- gaur 11y agoI meant what I said. http://www.ultimateungulate.com/cetartiodactyla.html http://www.ultimateungulate.com/cetartiodactyla.html
- Zancarius 11y agoThis is why I enjoy the HN comments. Although, I should probably be upset that you sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole (the theory is interesting!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungulate#Cetacean_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungulate#Cetacean_evolution
- DiabloD3 11y agoThis is a real TIL moment right there. Good job, HN. :)
- selfsimilar 11y agoWhat the what?! I stand corrected, though how I'm standing with my mind splattered across the ceiling, I'm not sure...
- knughit 11y agoAre you proposing that this creature might be a hippo, or were you showing off your knowledge of recent re-orderization? Do non-cetacean ungulates call like cetaceans?
- robbrown451 11y agoI don't think whales are considered ungulates, it is just that ungulate is no longer considered a monophyletic category (but cetartiodactyla is).
- baddox 11y ago
- hamburglar 11y agoWhen you cross breed whales of two different frequencies, do you get a "beat" interference pattern in the offspring? :)
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoSadly not. Which is a shame. Because if you did, you could engineer Dubstep Whale[tm] after a suitably sophisticated breeding program of additive genetic synthesis.
- eggy 11y agoAnd yet it survived, or at least the sound reoccurs every year for how long? I would think a malformation would doom its ability to communicate and feed correctly, no?
- tilt_error 11y agoI see the map of this whale's migration pattern goes north and south along the north american coast. Is it following an alternating current?
- jldugger 11y agoIf you mean the alternating directions of the Kremlin, maybe.
- adt2bt 11y agoIf we can track it, is it possible to locate the whale and observe it?
- digi_owl 11y agoI suspect the researchers would love to, but that would mean expenses regarding ship, crew, and all that comes along. Try getting that past management when all you got is a weird plot on a spectrogram.
- asdfologist 11y agoThat's sad though, because one day we'll lose that chance forever.
- spoiler 11y agoThis is a project I wouldn't mind backing on kick starter! Have there been any successfully crowd-funded documentaries with a big budget at all? A quick google search didn't reveal much, all the ones I saw were relatively low budget.
- digi_owl 11y agoIn the age before "reality" TV, i guess one may have had a chance with Discovery or National Geographics...
- dazmax 11y agoMentioned in the article: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lonelywhale/help-us-find-lonely-whale https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lonelywhale/help-us-fin...
- davidjade 11y agoLooks like they've been trying to already. http://www.lonelywhale.org http://www.lonelywhale.org http://52thesearch.com/ http://52thesearch.com/
- aroman 11y agoReminds me of the plot of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home!
- keirerish 11y agoFree Willy.
- userbinator 11y agoI wonder if it's really a whale, or some sort of man-made source (possibly a classified military technology) that coincidentally happens to be particularly whale-like?
- ars 11y agoI thought of that, but if I were making some secret military sound I would try very hard to blend in exactly like other whales, not do something unique and identifiable.
- marcosdumay 11y agoBut this is 52Hz, just around the 50Hz that a big part of the world uses as electrical standard. Some hidden generator somewhere could cause it. I guess the hardest part to explain (in an artificial source) is how it migrates all the time, not the pitch.
- knughit 11y agoUnlikely that broken electricity generator would be as loud as a whale, and survive 30years without repair. Also, would someone choose to generate AC in a marine application?
- rdc12 11y agoThw wikipedia article mentions that the US Navy partially declassified thoe orginal recordings after the Cold War, and made the array availble to researchers. If there was a military tech involved (with the source), I highly doubt they would have declassified that or as a conspiracy theory, it is misdirection...
- audiosampling 11y agoMakes sense. Trying to mask an acoustic signature around 50-60Hz, by using a sound that ressembles to a whale.
- whalesalad 11y agoThe worlds loneliest whale. How fascinating and sad!
- kps 11y agoSince I was curious, I took the recording from Wikipedia, which is sped up 10×, and slowed it down 10×: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0dMCeANPrbX http://vocaroo.com/i/s0dMCeANPrbX (No affiliation, just the first no-reg audio host I found.) Edit: you may need to turn up your volume. Much of it (including the first ten seconds) is pretty quiet. Edit²: I confirm hearing nothing at all using a laptop's built-in speakers; you'll need headphones or external audio.
- s0rce 11y agoInteresting, except on my macbook I can't hear anything. I wonder what the low frequency cutoff is.
- iamcreasy 11y agoIncrease the volume. It's very low pitch track.
- to3m 11y agoWith the volume at maximum on my 2015 MBP I get sound... of some description, at least. It just doesn't sound much like it does through headphones. It sounds like speakers trying to reproduce something that's beyond them ;)
- Symbiote 11y agoMy computer is connected to an average HiFi and speakers (£300 / $500 worth) with an on-board soundcard. I didn't need to adjust the volume to hear the whale. It reminds me most of waiting on the platform of a very deep metro line, and hearing the rumbling of a different metro train, some way above. That, or the (apparently reasonably authentic) sounds played in a Sea Life centre.
- to3m 11y agoThe MBP's sound hardware might not have a problem with it, but I was using the MBP's built in speakers ;) They're generally pretty good on the newer models, I think, as laptop speakers go. My 3-word review might be "better than functional". So having heard them make a tolerable go of music and games I was interested to see how they'd manage 52Hz. The answer: badly.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoI read the citation given in the wiki but I can't figure out why exactly deaf people may think this whale may be deaf. It is not clear to me.
- knughit 11y agoBecause it vocalizes at an nonstandard pitch for its species, like deaf humans do. And because it appears to be unable/unwilling to live in a pod with other whales, perhaps due to its inability to communicate with them vocally.
- brokencog 11y agoBut, why presume it's lonely? Maybe it can also "chat" on the normal "whale channel" and it's conducting a SETI experiment on it's own via 52hz? so much ethno- ego- centric decision making around animals ...
- diskcat 11y agoThere was that radio emission that was meant to contact aliens or some such. Perhaps the aliens thought that some stupid deaf hunam sent it.
- raverbashing 11y agoOr maybe it has had a wound or a disease that caused a frequency shift in the sound? (just a quick speculation)
- nacs 11y agoThe article mentions that the whale may be deaf.
- ackalker 11y agoMaybe it time-traveled back from the future to save us from deadly attack by an alien probe, to give us a chance to get things right this time.
- nchelluri 11y agoSomehow this reminded me of the old `sound()` help file from Borland C++ 3.1. I think it was in dos.h. http://everything2.com/title/7+hertz+-+the+resonant+frequency+of+a+chicken%2527s+skull http://everything2.com/title/7+hertz+-+the+resonant+frequenc... /* Emits a 7-Hz tone for 10 seconds. True story: 7 Hz is the resonant frequency of a chicken's skull cavity. This was determined empirically in Australia, where a new factory generating 7-Hz tones was located too close to a chicken ranch: When the factory started up, all the chickens died. Your PC may not be able to emit a 7-Hz tone. */
- nness 11y agoGreat little anecdote, although I guess you'd call it a hoax? The volume would have to be so loud that any human in the area would be in a great deal of discomfort before it killed nearby chickens.
- sandworm101 11y agoBirds are weird, basically totally nuts when kept in groups indoors. A little stress could see them all stop eating or peck everyone to death. A less-than-lethal volume could do real damage. A strobelight cannot kill a horse. But set one up in a barn full of horses and they will probably kill themselves. Horses are also nuts.
- thebouv 11y agoMaybe it's trying to find The Bloop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop
- remarkEon 11y agoSomehow this seems like the plot to the next Disney/Pixar film
- intrasight 11y agoJust notice that when I clicked to comment there were "52 comments" - interesting coincidence. Is locating the source that difficult? Don't we have tons of listening/triangulating stuff out in the oceans now?
- chillydawg 11y agoWhales roam the oceans. I expect in some deep devops cave in a military office somewhere, they have a monitor showing the real time location of this whale using their sub hunting tech for a laugh. I really hope that's true.
- emmelaich 11y agoMy half-arsed guesses (apart from the ones given) 1. birth defect affecting the 'vocal' cords 2. autistic or similar 3. dwarfism
- brador 11y agoHow hard is it to simply triangulate the signal and find the exact location of origin?
- Lanzaa 11y agoI think the issue is how quickly they identify the whales location. It seems like they have been able to track the movement fairly well. I imagine it takes a while to get a ship out to the identified location of the sound's origin, by which time the source has probably moved on.
- nakodari 11y agoThis reminds me of Moby Dick
- PepeGomez 11y agoIt doesn't appear to be as monotonous as the tiny spectrogram suggests, it's a sequence of subtly different tones: http://imgur.com/Z7S9Chq http://imgur.com/Z7S9Chq