Why Do Humpback Whales Sing? Whale Song Explained

Do all humpback whales sing?

No. Singing is done by male humpback whales, and it is most common in winter on the tropical breeding grounds, such as Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean and the coasts of eastern and western Australia. Males also sing while migrating, and song is sometimes heard on feeding grounds late in the summer and fall.

A singing male often hangs almost still below the surface with his head angled down, rising every so often to breathe and then picking up the song where he left off. Females and calves are not silent: they use quieter calls, and whales of both sexes make grunts, “whops” and other social sounds that are not part of the song.

How is a humpback whale song structured?

In 1971, the biologists Roger Payne and Scott McVay showed that humpback sounds are not random but are organized like music, with a structure that repeats. Scientists now describe songs in layers:

• Units: single sounds, such as a moan, a squeal or a grunt, a bit like musical notes.
• Phrases: short sequences of a few units.
• Themes: a phrase repeated several times in a row.
• Song: several themes sung in a fixed order. Then the male starts again.

A full song usually lasts somewhere between about 4 and 33 minutes, and a male may sing for hours, repeating it over and over. The sounds mostly range from about 100 hertz to 4 kilohertz, well within human hearing, with harmonics reaching much higher. Recordings made off Bermuda by Payne, McVay and the U.S. Navy engineer Frank Watlington appeared on the 1970 album Songs of the Humpback Whale, which became a best-seller and helped inspire the Save the Whales movement. Humpback song was later included on the Golden Records carried by the Voyager space probes.

Why do humpback whales sing?

Because only males sing and most singing happens during the breeding season, nearly all researchers link the song to reproduction. The details are still debated, and the song may have more than one job.

• Attracting females. The song may advertise a male’s presence and quality. Females rarely approach a lone singer directly, but they may be drawn to areas where many males are singing, a bit like the display grounds, or leks, of some birds.
• Dealing with other males. Other males often join a singer, after which the singer usually stops. These meetings can lead to short alliances or to competition, so song may help males assess or avoid rivals.
• Bringing whales together. Song may help whales find the breeding grounds or locate other whales in a wide ocean. One idea is that males use the echoes of their own songs as a kind of long-range sonar, though this remains unproven.

Interestingly, song appears to be becoming less common in some places. Off eastern Australia, where humpbacks increased from about 3,700 to about 27,000 between 1997 and 2015, about 2 in 10 males were singers in 2004 but only about 1 in 10 a decade later. Researchers think that in crowded waters, singing may attract rivals, so more males now compete physically for females instead.

How do humpback songs change and spread?

Each population has its own song, and all the males in it keep their versions closely matched. In the Northern Hemisphere, songs change gradually over months and years as males copy small changes from one another. In the Southern Hemisphere, change is sometimes sudden.

In 1995, just two males off eastern Australia were heard singing a new song that matched the one sung by humpbacks off western Australia, in the Indian Ocean. Within two years, every recorded male in the eastern population had switched to the new song. Later research showed that new songs repeatedly travel eastward from Australia across the South Pacific, through New Caledonia, Tonga and the Cook Islands to French Polynesia, each one taking about two years to spread.

This is one of the clearest examples of culture in animals, meaning behavior passed on by learning rather than by genes. A 2025 study also found that songs contain recurring parts with statistical patterns similar to those in human languages, possibly a sign of how young whales learn them.

How far can whale song travel?

Sound travels faster and farther in water than in air, and low sounds carry best. Recordings show that humpback songs can be heard at least 10 km (6 mi) away, and under good conditions they probably carry much farther. Hydrophones on the seafloor pick up singers that are far out of sight.

Humpbacks are not the loudest whales. The deep calls of the blue whale are louder and travel farther, as described in our list of the loudest animals. The humpback’s song is remarkable for its complexity rather than its volume.

Does noise affect whale song?

Yes. Ship engines, sonar and seismic surveys add a great deal of noise to the ocean. In one experiment published in 2000, male humpbacks off Hawaii sang longer songs when they were exposed to low-frequency navy sonar, possibly to make up for messages lost in the noise. Humpbacks also switch from calls to splashes such as breaches and tail slaps when wind makes the sea noisy, as explained in Why do whales breach?

Researchers worry that rising ocean noise could make it harder for whales to find mates and keep in touch, which is one reason some countries now set limits on noisy activities in important whale habitats.