SING and attract females, or keep quiet and eat? It’s a tricky dilemma for a male, to be sure, but one that humpback whales must wrestle with as they migrate to their summer feeding grounds. Males that sing swim more slowly than those that don’t, possibly ending up with less time in the feeding grounds to fatten up for the next winter. On the other hand, singers may attract more mates.
Michael Noad and colleagues at the University of Sydney in Australia tracked a population of humpback whales during the annual migration from low-latitude breeding areas to Antarctic feeding grounds.…
