Sperm Whales Have Local Dialects, New Study Shows

Plants and Animals





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Shane Gross/Shutterstock

A sperm whale’s “click” is the loudest sound produced by any animal – and it has an identifying dialect. In fact, according to a study published in Nature Communications, the whales aren’t born with different vocal chords or a bit of the sea particularly suited to a certain kind of click. They simply acquire their dialects from one another in the same way you or I might have taken on our parents' accent – by copying what they hear.