Like pop music, humpback whale songs spread, mutate, and fall out of fashion

Since the discovery of humpback whale songs in the 1960s, the exact reason why male humpbacks sing has puzzled scientists. Like other marine mammals, humpbacks use vocalisations to communicate, but they’re the only animals besides humans to produce sounds that combine repetition and complex patterns, akin to pop music. Each year, during mating season, all of the males within a population learn the same song. And, according to Ellen Garland, a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, these songs spread over time to other populations, and have even been found to travel halfway across the globe. In this video, Garland charts the journey of humpback whale songs across the Pacific Ocean. Through this framework, she builds a comparison between the way pop music spreads across cultures, and details the many enduring mysteries surrounding humpback whale songs.