Porpoises' Accents

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29844, 9 June 1962, Page 8

Porpoises' Accents

SAN FRANCISCO. Do porpoises from different oceans “speak” with different accents? Do some have a dolphin “southern drawl"? This is possible, according to Dr. John Dreher, head of the Lockheed-California Company's acoustics research laboratory. His opinion is based on a comparison of the recorded under-water whistles of the Atlantic and Pacific bottle-nosed porpoises. Their whistles—believed to be the language of porpoises —indicate slight but definite "pronunciation" variations for the same sound shapes, the acoustics specialist reported Pacific species, heard for the first time during a cruise of the Lockheed oceanographic research ship Sea Quest 300 miles south of San D.ego. seemed to drag out their whistle “words" or contours. Dr. Dreher said. Could this “dialect" be due to the regional isolation between the Pacific and Atlantic varieties?

“Con jectu rally speaking—yes," said Dr. Dreher. However, he pointed out, another explanation might be that all the Atlantic porpoise whistle recordings examined to date have been made in confined oceanarium tanks. This could have caused the mammals to shorten their whistles.

Additional recordings are being sought to check the theories. The porpoise studies are connected with Lockheed’s basic science and anti-sub-marine research programmes.