[Terra Nova] • When an animal gets involved in a long, complicated or excessive display we always think it's got something to do with sex. But when humpback whales sing the longest, most ornately patterned song known in the animal world, for whom are they singing?

Michel Andre is one of the world's great experts on the acoustics of the sperm whale. For years he was vexed about how to tell the clicking of individual whales apart when analyzing recordings made by groups of these Moby Dick-type whales foraging under water. Then he invited a Senegalese drummer, Arona N'Diaye Rose, to listen to his recording of a four-member unit of vocalizing sperm whales. Things started to "click" once he brought a drummer into the mix.

[Terra Nova] • I’m in the middle of writing a book on making music with whales, a project which has taken me to Russia, Canada, and Hawaii, in search of giant sea creatures who want to jam. Sometimes they actually do. But some scientists I run across are more difficult than the whales themselves.