Groundbreaking effort launched to decode whale language
With artificial intelligence and painstaking study of sperm whales, scientists hope to understand what these aliens of the deep are talking about.
Sperm whales, including this adult and calf swimming near the Caribbean nation of Dominica, communicate in clicks. In what may be the largest interspecies communication effort in history, scientists plan to use machine learning to try to decode what these animals say to one another.
ByCraig Welch
Email
On a crisp spring morning in 2008, Shane Gero overheard a pair of whales having a chat. Gero, a Canadian biologist, had been tracking sperm whales off the Caribbean island nation of Dominica when two males, babies from the same family, popped up not far from his boat. The animals, nicknamed Drop and Doublebend, nuzzled their enormous boxy heads and began to talk.