Leopard seals sing 'otherworldly' love songs akin to nursery rhymes, study finds
When male leopard seals dive down into icy Antarctic waters, they sing songs structured like nursery rhymes in performances that can last up to 13 hours, scientists said Thursday.
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The Australian-led team of researchers compared the complexity of the songs composed by the big blubbery mammals to those of other animals — as well as human musicians like the Beatles and Mozart.
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Lucinda Chambers, a bioacoustics PhD student at Australia's University of New South Wales, told AFP that people are often surprised when they hear the 'otherworldly' hoots and trills sung by leopard seals.
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'It kind of sounds like sound effects from an '80s sci-fi' movie, said the lead author of a new study in the journal Scientific Reports.
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During the spring breeding season, male leopard seals dive underwater and perform their songs for two minutes before returning to the surface for air. They then repeat this performance for up to 13 hours a day, according to the study.
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The researchers determined that all leopard seals share the same set of five 'notes' which are impossible to distinguish between individuals.
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However, each seal arranges these notes in a unique way to compose their own personal song.
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'We theorize that they're using that structure as a way to broadcast their individual identity, kind of like shouting their name out into the void,' Chambers said.
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The researchers believe the males use these songs to woo potential female mates — and ward off rivals.
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'Songbirds of the Southern Ocean'
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The team studied recordings of 26 seals captured by study co-author Tracey Rogers off the coast of Eastern Antarctica throughout the 1990s.
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'They're like the songbirds of the Southern Ocean,' Rogers, who is also from the University of New South Wales, said in a statement.
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'During the breeding season, if you drop a hydrophone into the water anywhere in the region, you'll hear them singing.'
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The team analyzed how random the seals' sequences of notes were, finding that their songs were less predictable than the calls of humpback whales or the whistles of dolphins.
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SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account But due to increasing coral cover since 2017, the coral deaths — caused mainly by bleaching last year associated with climate change — have left the area of living coral across the iconic reef system close to its long-term average, the Australian Institute of Marine Science said in its annual survey on Wednesday. The change underscores a new level of volatility on the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the report said. Mike Emslie, who heads the tropical marine research agency's long-term monitoring program, said the live coral cover measured in 2024 was the largest recorded in 39 years of surveys. The losses from such a high base of coral cover had partially cushioned the serious climate impacts on the world's largest reef ecosystem, which covers 344,000 square kilometres off the northeast Australian coast, he said. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'These are substantial impacts and evidence that the increasing frequency of coral bleaching is really starting to have detrimental effects on the Great Barrier Reef,' Emslie said on Thursday. 'While there's still a lot of coral cover out there, these are record declines that we have seen in any one year of monitoring,' he added. Emslie's agency divides the Great Barrier Reef, which extends 1,500 kilometres along the Queensland state coast, into three similarly-sized regions: northern, central and southern. 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Australia in March this year started aerial surveys of 281 reefs across the Torres Strait and the entire northern Great Barrier Reef and found widespread coral bleaching. Of the 281 reefs, 78 were more than 30% bleached. Coral has a hard time thriving and at times even surviving in prolonged hot water. They can survive short bursts, but once certain thresholds of weeks and high temperatures are passed, the coral is bleached, which means it turns white because it expels the algae that live in the tissue and give them their colors. Bleached corals are not dead, but they are weaker and more vulnerable to disease. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Coral reefs often bounce back from these mass global bleaching events, but often they are not as strong as they were before. 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