Culture Among Sperm Whales?

摘要

The strategies marine mammals use to exploit oceanic resources have evolved through natural selection for different phenotypes. Through cultural evolution, people have developed a parallel set of specialized fishing strategies, each of which demands different infrastructure and knowledge. In Sperm Whales: Social Evolution in the Oceans, Hal Whitehead argues that culture also forms part of the repertoire of evolutionary mechanisms in cetaceans. Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) exploit the massive resources of squid that inhabit depths between 200 and 1000 m. Have the unusual challenges of exploiting this resource, which has as yet defeated human ingenuity, led to circumstances m which a culture can evolve? The book provides us with an intriguing insight into the biology of the sperm whale, an animal that has been steeped in mystery because of its strange appearance, its complex social structure, and the remoteness of its deep ocean habitats. Mystery can lead to romantic and biologically illogical interpretations of life histories, of which sperm whales have attracted more than their fair share. Whitehead, an ecolo- gist at Dalhousie University, brings a refreshingly reasoned approach to the subject, and the book begins to undermine the mythology of sperm whale life history and social structure. Grounded on a theoretical framework, its thorough examination of the facts illustrates the value of hypothesis generation and testing.