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Knock, Knock

February 3, 2013

Underwater hydrophones in the busy Bering Sea record a cacophony of sounds, including “knocks” from walruses. Carter Esch, a MIT/WHOI Joint Program student in the Biology Department, utilizes these tools to listen in on the secret lives of bowhead whales, which may use the Bering Sea as a breeding ground. Bowhead whale songs, likely part of a display to attract a mate, change throughout the season and are never identical from year to year. Esch and her colleagues are studying how changes are introduced to the song and how whales adopt these changes and end up singing the same tune. (Photo by Carter Esch, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)