Photo: © Dan Knaub, The Video Company
Whales may be even friendlier than we think. In a first, a group of researchers from the SETI Institute and the University of California at Davis documented humpback whales making bubble rings. While whales are known to use bubbles when feeding or even competing for female whales, this behavior is unique because it’s aimed at humans.
The team published a study in Marine Mammal Science after analyzing 12 bubble ring–production episodes involving 39 rings made by 11 individual whales. The information was gathered from naturalists, citizen scientists, and researchers with whom they conducted interviews and analyzed their videos or photos. As an additional step, they also examined drone footage to determine if the whales would produce bubble rings in the absence of humans. Interestingly, the materials reveal that humpback whales create bubble rings during friendly encounters with humans.
“Humpback whales often exhibit inquisitive, friendly behavior towards boats and human swimmers,” says Jodi Frediani, co-lead author, marine wildlife photographer, and U.C. Davis affiliate. “We’ve now located a dozen whales from populations around the world, the majority of which have voluntarily approached boats and swimmers blowing bubble rings during these episodes of curious behavior.”
It’s an exciting observation to know that whales use their bubbles not just to communicate with each other, but also with us. But, given their complex social interactions, this shouldn’t be too surprising.
“Humpback whales live in complex societies, are acoustically diverse, use bubble tools and assist other species being harassed by predators,” says Dr. Fred Sharpe, co-lead author and UC Davis affiliate. “Now, akin to a candidate signal, we show they are blowing bubble rings in our direction in an apparent attempt to playfully interact, observe our response, and/or engage in some form of communication.”
During the bubble ring encounters, which occurred near people or swimmers on 10 of 12 occasions, the whales appeared calm and relaxed. This suggests that what we’re seeing is an inquisitive behavior.
This information will be used to further the SETI Institute’s mission of studying non-human intelligence to aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
“Because of current limitations on technology, an important assumption of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is that extraterrestrial intelligence and life will be interested in making contact and so target human receivers,” says Dr. Laurance Doyle, SETI Institute scientist and co-author on the paper. “This important assumption is certainly supported by the independent evolution of curious behavior in humpback whales.”
A recent study shows how humpback whales create bubble rings during positive interactions with humans.
Source: WhaleSETI: Curious Humpback Whales Approach Humans and Blow Bubble “Smoke” Rings; Scientists Photograph Humpback Whales Blowing Bubble Rings to ‘Speak’ to Humans
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animal behavior,animals,humpback whale,marine biology,science
