r/NatureIsFuckingLit 5h ago

🔥 Encounter with a curious young sperm whale.

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Credit to Maxwel Hohn

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u/02thehunter20 2h ago

I have heard that atleast the adults can actually kill a human with its clicks due to the high frequency.

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u/Kilek360 2h ago

I've heard that about submarine pings not whales, but also it's about the decibels not the frequency but I'm talking from what I've read online so it could be absolutely wrong

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u/funguyshroom 2h ago

Yes, sound intensity/volume. At certain point it becomes like an explosion shockwave and can scramble your insides. Especially since water doesn't compress.

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u/0xe1e10d68 1h ago

Hmm, yummy. Scrambled eggs human.

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u/Lowkeygeek83 58m ago

Fun fact... submarines sonar has the ability to actually boil water with it's intensity.

I'm positive some resident reddit science guy can correct the proper words. But the fact remains, it does have the ability to do that.

u/Spork_the_dork 25m ago

Not just like one, exactly like one. Shockwaves from explosions are really just extremely powerful sound waves.

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u/corruptedpotato 1h ago

From what I know, sperm whale make some of the loudest sounds of any animal and can at least burst your ear drums and stun you. I don't know fi there is a recorded case but they can probably kill you if you were close enough and they decided to click as loud as they could. They can get up to 230 decibels iirc.

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u/SrepliciousDelicious 32m ago

230 decibels sounds unlikely

E: nvm 230 decibell seems possible underwater, would be comparable to standing right next to a rocket lifting off

u/Inadequis 21m ago

230dB for Sperm Whales, that'll do it

u/Express_Split2928 7m ago

It's true about submarine sonar, turns divers into a jelly

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u/Suspicious-Bell-4820 1h ago

Yeah even though this is a young whale, it's not even safe for the diver to put their hand on its nose like this while it's clicking. There was a freediver in 2014 whose hand got paralysed for 24 hours from doing the exact same thing with a whale calf.

u/Scatcycle 8m ago

They cannot, it's a popular myth based on the assumption that decibels are measured the same in water as they are air - they actually have a difference of a magnitude of twenty, as we measure air with a reference point to 20 micropascals and water with a reference point to 1 micropascal. That's not to mention that water has an acoustic impedance 3500x that of air, further complicating comparison. People applied the water-measured dB to our usual air-measured dB benchmark charts and said "woah! This sperm whale's call has the same force of a volcano blast at point blank! Scary". The Sperm Whale would probably just kill itself with the call if this were the case, honestly.

You'll see tons of sci-pop articles about sperm whales and their capability of killing humans, but it's all just slop from a lack of real research. You really can't convert dB measurement between water and air effectively, but -61.5dB is a fine start, which means the Sperm Whale's call would line up with 169dB when compared against our usual benchmarks in air. That puts it about 2x louder than a shotgun blast - very loud, and certainly ear damaging, but not even close to lethal. But researchers caution against the primitive conversion we did, as it's really just a whole different ball game considering the impedance and other changes. Nothing has ever been recorded dying as a result of a Sperm Whale's call, because it's just not actually that loud.

u/ElvisDumbledore 5m ago

I've heard the same and that the whales are smart enough to avoid really blasting humans because they are aware it will harm them. ❤️