• Question: why do whale's voices get deeper every year?

    Asked by wewantcedric5 to Carrie, Ellen, Rupert on 17 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Carrie Ijichi

      Carrie Ijichi answered on 17 Mar 2017:

      I’m not certain about this but the pitch of vocalisations is often associated with the size of the animal – its called a honest signal and it lets the receiver know how big the sender is. Then they can decide whether to fight (because he’s smaller) or run away (because he’s enormous!). If the whales get a little bigger each year until they’re fully grown, that might make their voices deeper.

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