Ultramarine: the science of our oceans and waterways
Mar 20, 2026 · 18 min · 8 segments
Host David Boldeman speaks with ConnectSci science journalist Imma Perfetto about new research that has, for the first time, measured the hearing range of humpback whales in the wild. The discussion…
Emma PerfettoGuest
David BouldermanHost
So before this study, the scientists had a hearing range of the humpback whales in mind of what it looked like.
And they would have done this from tests of just studying deceased whales, I assume, or other tests that may not have been strong.
How's this changed their thinking? And what are the hearing ranges? And is it lower frequency, higher frequency? What are we looking at?
So before now, what scientists did was they kind of inferred what they thought humpback hearing sensitivity would be based on a few things.
For instance, you know, the frequencies of their vocalizations that they use to communicate with each other, if they're talking at certain frequencies, then they probably can hear those as well.
They also looked at the anatomy of their ears and creating these models based on the structure of the inner and the middle and the outer ear to sort of understand how sounds would be transmitted through those structures.
And from those different approaches, a few different hearing ranges have been estimated.
For maybe a bit of context, the human ear can typically hear ranges uh frequency ranges from about 20 hertz all the way up to 20 kilohertz or 20 000 hertz so estimates for humpbacks have you know range from 100 hertz to 18 kilohertz 700 hertz to 10 kilohertz 15 hertz to 3 kilohertz it's you know all over the place so
So before this study, the scientists had a hearing range of the humpback whales in mind of what it looked like.
And they would have done this from tests of just studying deceased whales, I assume, or other tests that may not have been strong.
How's this changed their thinking? And what are the hearing ranges? And is it lower frequency, higher frequency? What are we looking at?
So before now, what scientists did was they kind of inferred what they thought humpback hearing sensitivity would be based on a few things.
For instance, you know, the frequencies of their vocalizations that they use to communicate with each other, if they're talking at certain frequencies, then they probably can hear those as well.
They also looked at the anatomy of their ears and creating these models based on the structure of the inner and the middle and the outer ear to sort of understand how sounds would be transmitted through those structures.
And from those different approaches, a few different hearing ranges have been estimated.
For maybe a bit of context, the human ear can typically hear ranges uh frequency ranges from about 20 hertz all the way up to 20 kilohertz or 20 000 hertz so estimates for humpbacks have you know range from 100 hertz to 18 kilohertz 700 hertz to 10 kilohertz 15 hertz to 3 kilohertz it's you know all over the place so
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