Whales 'singing pop songs'

COPENHAGEN - Bowhead whales sing sophisticated songs which change every year like human popular music, according to Danish research.

The animals were found to use the songs to attract mates in Disko Bay, Greenland, by scientists from the University of Copenhagen.

Outi Maria Tervo, the university's scientific leader on Disko Island, said: "It turns out that bowhead whales change their songs from year to year and never repeat songs from previous years. The whales have a new repertoire each year - presumably as part of the eternal struggle to obtain a mate. Whale song is not a new phenomenon. But the special thing about the bowhead whale's song is that they sometimes sing with 'more than one voice'."

They produce two different songs or sounds, which are then mixed together.

Bowhead whales, which can grow to 18 metres and weight 100 tonnes, were written off as extinct in the waters around Greenland.

However, the opening up of the Northwest Passage in the Arctic circle has given animals from the northern Pacific a route to Disko Bay for mating.