Purpose of Whale-created Sounds
While the complex sounds of the Humpback whale (and some blue whales) are believed to be primarily used in sexual selection, the simpler sounds of other whales have a year-round use. While toothed whales are capable of using echolocation to detect the size and nature of objects, this capability has never been demonstrated in baleen whales. Further, unlike some fish such as sharks, a whale's sense of smell is not highly developed. Thus, given the poor visibility of aquatic environments and that sound travels so well in water, sounds audible to humans may play a role in navigation. For instance, the depth of water or the existence of a large obstruction ahead may be detected by loud noises made by baleen whales.
The singing of whale songs for aesthetic enjoyment, personal satisfaction, or 'for art's sake', is "an untestable question in scientific terms."
Read more about this topic: Whale Vocalization
Famous quotes containing the words purpose of, purpose and/or sounds:
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Man, her last work, who seemed so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law—
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed—”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,
Quiet breath;
Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,
Life and death.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)