Humpback Whales Betwee: Social Transmission And Culture

Social Transmission and Culture In 2001, Russell and Whitehead published an article claiming that Humpback whales did in fact have a culture. The explanation or definition of culture they used in their study was the following: the for a specie to have culture, there must be variation on the behavior of groups within the specie. Behavioral variations could be deduced by observing spatial, temporal or social patterns and these variations shouldn’t be able to be explained by individual learning or genetic or environmental determination (Rendalla 2001:312). They collected information during a 9 year period on Humpback whales at the individual level. Humpback whales live in fission-fusion societies (Rendella 2001: 311). Humpback calves, at first, follow their mothers to learn the migration paths between breeding and feeding grounds (Rendella 2001: 313).These are the main points utilized for evidence in their research:

1. Rapid spread of a novel and complex form of behaviour through a segment of the population, indicating a largely horizontal – within-generation (Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman 1981) – cultural process. 2. Mother-offspring similarity in a complex form of behaviour, indicating vertical – parent-offspring (Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman 1981) – cultural transmission. 3. Differences in complex behaviour
Russell and Whitehead found that feeding techniques were adopted through social learning since calves adopted the technique from the population they were born even if their mother did not(Rendalla 2001: 312-313). They claimed that the accelerated pace at which a lobtail feeding technique was picked up, especially since the techniques were not pass down through material lineage, could not be explained through individual learning(Rendalla