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Humpback whales sing most frequently where and when they breed. But researchers have discovered that whales can sing complex songs even when diving and foraging, when it's neither the time nor the place for mating behavior. The study is published in the journal PLoS ONE.
在繁殖的时间和地点，座头鲸唱歌最为频繁。然而研究人员发现鲸在潜水和觅食（既不在交配的场所，也不是交配的时辰）时的叫声更加复杂。《公共科学图书馆》刊发了这项研究。
Researchers tagged ten humpback whales with suction-cup sensors and tracked each mammal for a full day in Antarctic waters during the fall—the time and place when whales feed rather than breed. While the sensors picked up background song near all of the whales, two individuals performed long, complex songs more suited to mating behavior. They even sang while on feeding lunges more than 100 meters below the surface.
研究人员给十头座头鲸贴上吸盘式传感器，花一整天时间来跟踪每头鲸。实验地点选在南极水域，时间选在秋季，因为这时是捕食而不是繁殖的季节。传感器收集到附近所有鲸的背景音乐，但只有两头鲸“演唱”了长而复杂、更适用于交配行为的歌曲。这些座头鲸甚至能在低于水平面100米的地方用肺部唱歌。
The fact that these whales can vocalize even under widely different water pressures may help us figure out how they produce their songs. And more important, the overlap in breeding and feeding activities proves humpback and other baleen whales are way more behaviorally flexible than we thought. Unlike some human singers, they are definitely not one-hit wonders.
实际上，这些鲸能在多种不同的水压条件下发声，这也许能帮助我们弄明白它们是如何唱歌的。而且最重要的是，繁殖和觅食活动可以同时发生，这证明座头鲸和其他须鲸类一样比之前想象的要灵活。与人类的歌唱家不同的是，它们绝不会是昙花一现。
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