Discovery gets deep in its musing about a cetacean mystery. The songs of the blue whale have been getting progressively lower in pitch:
In some cases, the pitch of their songs has dropped by more than 30 percent. Frustrated researchers cannot yet explain why.
“It’s a worldwide phenomenon,” said Mark McDonald, an ocean acoustician and independent researcher in Bellvue, Colo. “All blue whales are shifting their frequencies downward. They are all going in the same direction, and we really don’t understand it.”
“Maybe by putting this data out there,” he added, “someone will have a eureka moment and see something that really explains this.”
It may be that whales have been getting larger, on average, since commercial whaling was banned in the 1960s. Or it may be that they’re working to overcome noise pollution, or that ocean pollutants are doing something to their vocal cords. But none of those explanations really stands up.
One that might, though, is sorta unsurprising:
To explain why they’re making that extra effort, the researchers propose that deeper voices are sexier — even for whales — and could be used to attract potential mates. Only the males sing.
Aww, yeah, baby. Come a little closer.