Underwater sound

We may have heard about humpback whales that sing in the ocean, but it may not have ever occurred to us that other forms of sea life communicate by sound, as well. It was Jacques-Yves Cousteau who coined the phrase "the silent world" in one of his films about the sea, and most people believed him.

Yet the oceans are a concert of sound, it turns out. Amorina Kingdon tells us about it in her 2024 book Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water. Many different species communicate by sound. These are not necessarily vocal sounds. Some species produce sound by rubbing body parts together or in other ways.

Kingdon writes, "Sculpins move their pectoral girdle. Toadfish, squirrelfish, and others drum on their swim bladder with special muscles or tendons, making resonant hums, moans, and boops. Blue grunt or beau-gregory scrape or grind special teeth in their throats. Some fish burp or expel gas from their anus."

Researchers have speculated that the songs of humpback whales may actually, in a sense, rhyme.

Whale sounds can travel many miles. It is how they communicate with each other. Some species use sound to attract mates or to find their young in dark water.

Humans have a way if interfering with the natural world without meaning to, such as by simply cutting down  dead trees. This is true of underwater sound, as well. The engines of ships, sonar and windmills, for example, can make life difficult for sea life and may be responsible for those mysterious beached whales.

Kingdon gives us the good and the bad of underwater sound.