Abstract
SINCE the advent, some 25 yr ago, of recording equipment responsive over a wide frequency band, listening stations at scattered ocean locations have recorded long, repetitious trains of powerful, low frequency sound pulses that vary over a narrow 6 Hz band centred at about 20 Hz1,2. Once an enigma, the source of these remarkable signals is now thought to be baleen whales, and although several types of signals have been recorded3, implying that more than one species is responsible, strong evidence implicates the finback whale, Balaenoptera physalus, as one of the generators1. The low frequency acoustic mechanisms of whales are as yet unknown4 but, based mainly on sound propagation theory, it has been both suggested2,4 and vigorously argued5 that the whales use the signals for long-range communication.
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