NOC was a beluga whale who made human-like vocalizations. He was captured by Inuit hunters for the United States Navy in 1977 and lived in captivity until his death in 1999. In 1984, researchers from the National Marine Mammal Foundation discovered his unusual ability to mimic the rhythm and tone of human speech. Belugas' human-like voices had been described in the past, but NOC's voice was the first to have been recorded.
NOC was legally captured by Inuit hunters in 1977 as a juvenile. [1] The name "NOC" is a play on "no-see-ums", biting midges found in Manitoba where he was caught. [2] He lived in captivity for 22 years until his death in 1999. His human-like vocalizations were first noticed in 1984 and stopped about four years later when he became sexually mature. [2]
Beluga whales have been called "canaries of the sea", and anecdotes of their capacity for mimicry have been reported in the past. [2] For example, the first two scientists to study the calls of wild Belugas wrote that "occasionally the calls would suggest a crowd of children shouting in the distance", and keepers at the Vancouver Aquarium said that a 15-year-old Beluga named "Lagosi" was able to speak his own name. [3] However, NOC's human-like calls were the first of their kind to be recorded. [4]
NOC's vocalizations were recorded and studied by a team of biologists from the National Marine Mammal Foundation (NMMF) led by Sam Ridgway. In 1984, Ridgway and others at the NMMF began to hear peculiar sounds coming from the whale and dolphin enclosure. They were reminiscent of two people talking in the distance, the words just beyond the limit of comprehension. [5] Later, a diver working in the enclosure came to the surface after he heard someone cry "out, out, out!" [1] After he asked his colleagues "Who told me to get out?", they realized it had been NOC. [4] They immediately began to record the sounds and reward him for the behavior, teaching him to make them on command. Eventually, they installed a pressure sensor in his nasal cavity to better understand the mechanism by which the sounds were produced. [4]
According to Ridgway, "They were definitely unlike usual sounds for a beluga, and similar to human voices in rhythm and acoustic spectrum." [1] Unlike humans who use their larynx to produce sounds, whales use their nasal tract. Data gathered from the pressure sensors indicated that NOC was using his nasal tract as well, although he altered his normal vocal mechanics. [5] In particular, he over-inflated his vestibular sac, which is normally used to prevent water from entering the lungs. [4]
NOC's vocalizations were described during a conference in 1985, and in a 2012 paper by Ridgway et al. which appeared in Current Biology. [2]
Cetacea is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel themselves through the water with powerful up-and-down movement of their tail which ends in a paddle-like fluke, using their flipper-shaped forelimbs to maneuver.
Whales(Balaena) are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins and porpoises may be considered whales from a formal, cladistic perspective. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest non-cetacean living relatives are the hippopotamuses, from which they and other cetaceans diverged about 54 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have had their last common ancestor around 34 million years ago. Mysticetes include four extant (living) families: Balaenopteridae, Balaenidae, Cetotheriidae, and Eschrichtiidae. Odontocetes include the Monodontidae, Physeteridae, Kogiidae, and Ziphiidae, as well as the six families of dolphins and porpoises which are not considered whales in the informal sense.
The narwhal, also known as a narwhale, is a medium-sized toothed whale that lives year-round in Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada and Russia. It is one of two living species of whale in the family Monodontidae, along with the beluga whale, and the only species in the genus Monodon. The narwhal males are distinguished by a long, straight, helical tusk, which in actuality is an oversized canine tooth. On the other hand, females rarely possess this feature; an example of sexual dimorphism. The narwhal was one of many species described by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758.
The beluga whale is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus Delphinapterus. It is also known as the white whale, as it is the only cetacean to regularly occur with this colour; the sea canary, due to its high-pitched calls; and the melonhead, though that more commonly refers to the melon-headed whale, which is an oceanic dolphin.
Oceanic dolphins or Delphinidae are a widely distributed family of dolphins that live in the sea. Close to forty extant species are recognised. They include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the Globicephalinae. Delphinidae is a family within the superfamily Delphinoidea, which also includes the porpoises (Phocoenidae) and the Monodontidae. River dolphins are relatives of the Delphinoidea.
The cetacean family Monodontidae comprises two living whale species, the narwhal and the beluga whale and at least four extinct species, known from the fossil record. Beluga and Narwhal are native to coastal regions and pack ice around the Arctic Ocean. Both species are relatively small whales, between three and five metres in length, with a forehead melon, and a short or absent snout. They do not have a true dorsal fin, but do have a narrow ridge running along the back, which is much more pronounced in the narwhal. They are highly vocal animals, communicating with a wide range of sounds. Like other whales, they also use echolocation to navigate. Belugas can be found in the far north of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; the distribution of narwhals is restricted to the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.
The toothed whales are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales possessing teeth, such as the beaked whales and sperm whales. 73 species of toothed whales are described. They are one of two living groups of cetaceans, the other being the baleen whales (Mysticeti), which have baleen instead of teeth. The two groups are thought to have diverged around 34 million years ago (mya).
Cetacean intelligence is the overall intelligence and derived cognitive ability of aquatic mammals belonging in the infraorder Cetacea (cetaceans), including baleen whales, porpoises, and dolphins.
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispecific" or "monospecific" is sometimes preferred. In botanical nomenclature, a monotypic genus is a genus in the special case where a genus and a single species are simultaneously described. In contrast, an oligotypic taxon contains more than one but only a very few subordinate taxa.
The false killer whale is a species of oceanic dolphin that is the only extant representative of the genus Pseudorca. It is found in oceans worldwide but mainly in tropical regions. It was first described in 1846 as a species of porpoise based on a skull, which was revised when the first carcasses were observed in 1861. The name "false killer whale" comes from having a skull similar to the orca, or killer whale.
The melon is a mass of adipose tissue found in the foreheads of all toothed whales. It focuses and modulates the animal's vocalizations and acts as a sound lens. It is thus a key organ involved in communication and echolocation.
Whales use a variety of sounds for communication and sensation. The mechanisms used to produce sound vary from one family of cetaceans to another. Marine mammals, including whales, dolphins, and porpoises, are much more dependent on sound than land mammals due to the limited effectiveness of other senses in water. Sight is less effective for marine mammals because of the particulate way in which the ocean scatters light. Smell is also limited, as molecules diffuse more slowly in water than in air, which makes smelling less effective. However, the speed of sound is roughly four times greater in water than in the atmosphere at sea level. As sea mammals are so dependent on hearing to communicate and feed, environmentalists and cetologists are concerned that they are being harmed by the increased ambient noise in the world's oceans caused by ships, sonar and marine seismic surveys.
Animal song is not a well-defined term in scientific literature, and the use of the more broadly defined term vocalizations is in more common use. Song generally consists of several successive vocal sounds incorporating multiple syllables. Some sources distinguish between simpler vocalizations, termed “calls”, reserving the term “song” for more complex productions. Song-like productions have been identified in several groups of animals, including cetaceans, avians (birds), anurans (frogs), and humans. Social transmission of song has been found in groups including birds and cetaceans.
The Cumberland Sound belugas are a distinct population of belugas residing in the Cumberland Sound region of the Labrador Sea off the coast of Nunavut, Canada Individuals of this population reside in the sound year-round, congregating in its extreme north exclusively at Clearwater Fjord during the summer for calving. The Cumberland Sound beluga population is considered fairly isolated and genetically distinct from other beluga populations, with a notable number of haplotypes and microsatellite loci not found elsewhere.
Eschscholtz Bay is an arm of Kotzebue Sound, on the Chukchi Sea-facing coast of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is up to eleven miles wide, and separated from the outer Kotzebue Sound by Choris Peninsula and Chamisso Island.
Vocal learning is the ability to modify acoustic and syntactic sounds, acquire new sounds via imitation, and produce vocalizations. "Vocalizations" in this case refers only to sounds generated by the vocal organ as opposed to by the lips, teeth, and tongue, which require substantially less motor control. A rare trait, vocal learning is a critical substrate for spoken language and has only been detected in eight animal groups despite the wide array of vocalizing species; these include humans, bats, cetaceans, pinnipeds, elephants, and three distantly related bird groups including songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds. Vocal learning is distinct from auditory learning, or the ability to form memories of sounds heard, a relatively common trait which is present in all vertebrates tested. For example, dogs can be trained to understand the word "sit" even though the human word is not in its innate auditory repertoire. However, the dog cannot imitate and produce the word "sit" itself as vocal learners can.
A talking animal or speaking animal is any non-human animal that can produce sounds or gestures resembling those of a human language. Several species or groups of animals have developed forms of communication which superficially resemble verbal language, however, these usually are not considered a language because they lack one or more of the defining characteristics, e.g. grammar, syntax, recursion, and displacement. Researchers have been successful in teaching some animals to make gestures similar to sign language, although whether this should be considered a language has been disputed.
Johannes Gerardus Marie (Hans) Thewissen is a Dutch-American paleontologist known for his significant contributions to the field of whale evolution. Thewissen's fieldwork has led to the discovery of key fossils that have shed light on the transition of whales from land to water, including the discovery of Ambulocetus, Pakicetus, Indohyus, and Kutchicetus. In addition to his work on fossil discoveries, Thewissen also studies modern bowhead and beluga whales in Alaska, focusing on their biology and the implications of this knowledge for management and conservation efforts. His research has been instrumental in deepening our understanding of cetacean evolution and the adaptations that allowed these mammals to transition from terrestrial to fully aquatic lifestyles.
Christine Erbe is a German-Australian physicist specializing in underwater acoustics. She is a professor in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences and director of the Centre for Marine Science and Technology (CMST)—both at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. Erbe is known for her research on acoustic masking in marine mammals, investigating how man-made underwater noise interferes with animal acoustic communication.
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