Adolescent whale, and lonely * A mysterious whale cruises the Pacific Ocean and makes sounds with an unexpected frequency
Imagine wandering the world's largest ocean, alone, year after year, calling out endless calls without getting any response. This, it seems, is the condition of a lone whale of a hitherto unidentified species, discovered in 1992 in the North Pacific using a hidden array of hydrophones (a device for recording and measuring underwater distance) used by the US Navy to track enemy submarines. The name given to the marine mammal is the "52 Hz" whale, because of the sequence of sounds it makes at a low frequency, slightly above the lowest sound that can be produced from a whale.
The voice signature is undoubtedly that of a whale, but it is not at all similar to the usual sounds made by the giant blue whale, members of the second largest species - the fin whale, or any other whale, said Mary-Ann Dahr, a marine biologist from the Woods Institute Hall" for the study of oceans in Cape Cod. Dahr is a member of the team founded by the late Dr. William Watkins, a pioneer in the field of marine mammal sound theory.
In one of the last issues of the "Deep Water Research" magazine, team members reported that according to all signs, the sounds are made by one animal, whose mobility "seems to be unrelated to the presence or movement of other species of whales". According to Dahr, the 52 Hz whale is probably in puberty, as its voice has thickened over time.
Team members and other experts have come up with different explanations for the sounds made by the lone whale. According to one of them, he suffers from birth defects, but according to another opinion, he is a hybrid of a giant whale with another species.
Dahr said that after information about the article was published, she received many e-mails from whale lovers expressing sorrow for the "lone heart in the world of marine mammals." Several messages arrived from the boards who believe that the whale suffers from the same defect.
Courtesy of Walla news
