ArticleBiology letters2019
Acoustic crypsis in communication by North Atlantic right whale mother-calf pairs on the calving grounds.
Article in Biology letters, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cryptic Vocal Communication in the Proboscis Bat (Rhynchonycteris naso).Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Detection, communication, and individual identification with deep audio embeddings: A case study with North Atlantic right whales.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Behavioural context of call production in humpback whale calves: identification of potential begging calls in a mysticetes species.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Article
- Preferred shallow-water nursery sites provide acoustic crypsis to southern right whale mother-calf pairs.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Humpback whale adult females and calves balance acoustic contact with vocal crypsis during periods of increased separation.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mammals with dependent young often rely on cryptic behaviour to avoid detection by potential predators. In the mysticetes, large baleen whales, young calves are known to be vulnerable to direct predation from both shark and orca predators; therefore, it is possible that mother-calf pairs may show cryptic behaviours to avoid the attention of predators. Baleen whales primarily communicate through low-frequency acoustic signals, which can travel over long ranges. In this study, we explore the potential for acoustic crypsis, a form of cryptic behaviour to avoid predator detection, in North Atlantic right whale mother-calf pairs. We predicted that mother-calf pairs would either show reduced calling rates, reduced call amplitude or a combination of these behavioural modifications when compared with other demographic groups in the same habitat. Our results show that right whale mother-calf pairs have a strong shift in repertoire usage, significantly reducing the number of higher amplitude, long-distance communication signals they produced when compared with juvenile and pregnant whales in the same habitat. These observations show that right whale mother-calf pairs rely upon acoustic crypsis, potentially to minimize the risk of acoustic eavesdropping by predators.
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