Many animals have been taught to mimic human behaviors, particularly human speech patterns but no animal has been found to do so naturally, until now. A beluga whale at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California has been found to make sounds at lower octaves than usual and in patterns atypical for whales. While a researcher diving with the beluga heard unusual sounds the research team decided to investigate. They traced the sounds to one nine-year old male named NOC and recorded his sounds. What the discovered was that NOC was making vocal noises in bursts of about three seconds with pauses that are close to human speech patterns but not whale communication. They also found that the frequencies of NOC’s noises were varied into “harmonics” that were similar to humans but very distinct from whales. As the researchers gave NOC rewards for the human-like sounds he was taught to make them on command so they could be better studied. It was found that NOC can change the pressure in his naval cavity quickly as well as adjusted a few other body parts involved in vocalization to create lower frequency sounds in order to produce these sounds that whales have not been heard to make ever before.
This is a really exciting discovery and is one step closer to us understanding whale communication, adaptability and intelligence!
