Ep. 17 – Fabrice Schnöller on free diving with sperm whales

“Scientists have been studying dolphins for fifty years,” Schnöller says. “We know they’re communicating in a sophisticated way but we don’t know how. We knew the same thing is going on with sperm whale, but we didn’t know how because no one was going in the water.”

In 2007, our guest, Fabrice Schnöller, was sailing off the coast of Mauritius, in East Africa, when he had an encounter that would change his life and open a new frontier in marine biology. As his boat neared land, huge pillars of steam burst out of the water and began surrounding the boat. Schnöller, an experienced diver, grabbed his snorkeling gear and jumped in to investigate. No sooner had he slipped under the water than he was overwhelmed by a crashing, creaking sound. Glancing downwards, he discovered a set of what appeared to be huge, dark monoliths accelerating towards him.

“I asked myself, ‘are these clicks only used to see the world, as sonar?’ or are they also used to communicate? If they do that, it would [involve] a completely different way of communicating.” Pictured here, Schnöller dives with a sperm whale. (Photo courtesy of Fabrice Schnöller)

They were sperm whales, the bearers of the largest brains ever known to have existed on Earth. Researchers know relatively little about these whales, given the challenges of free diving with them. What we do know is that each sperm whale’s neocortex—the part of the brain that governs higher level thought in humans—is estimated to be six times the size of ours. It also contains spindle cells, the brain structures correlated with speech in humans. In sperm whales, these cells exist in far greater concentration than they do in human brains.

“We assume that we’re the only ones with language, and that makes us gods. But we can also imagine that we are limited by this language and our sensory system. And imagine that other animals with different sensory systems and different brains could be more efficient than us at communicating.” (Photo courtesy of Fabrice Schnöller)

As the whales approached Schnöller, the creaking, crashing sound he had heard before intensified. It was coming from the whales, and it was so powerful that Schnöller felt it in his bones. The whales were echolocating, translating the noise ricocheting off of him into a three-dimensional image of his body. This faculty—shared by bats and a variety of other vertebrates—would have enabled them to see inside of Schnöller’s body, as we might with the help of an x-ray. The whales hovered around Schnoller for the next two hours, emitting bursts of these nuanced clicking noises. They appeared to be communicating with each other, and perhaps even trying to communicate with him.

“Trying to understand what echolocation is or to explain it… is [like] trying to explain what vision is to someone who has been blind from birth.” (Photo courtesy of Fabrice Schnöller)

The encounter inspired Mr. Schnöller to found DAREWIN, an initiative aimed at unpacking the mysteries of whale click communication and exposing it to the wider public. In the nine years since the project launched, Schnöller and his team have amassed the largest database of sperm whale behavior and vocalizations in history—all collected non-invasively, through free diving. They have been among the first to bring Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies underwater, opening an exciting new frontier in the study of animal behavior. In partnership with the New York Times, these pathbreaking researchers have also produced The Click Effect, a VR film screened at the Sundance, Tribeca and Cannes Film Festivals. DAREWIN’s recordings are published on an open-source platform, available to any researchers interested in analyzing them.

Recommendations:

Mama’s Last Hug by Frans de Waal

Jacques Cousteau (inspiring figure)

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