ИСТИНА

In this study we compared the dialects of five resident (fish-eating) communities from the North Pacific: three from the eastern (Southern Residents, Northern Residents and Alaskan Residents) and two from the western (Kamchatka Residents and Commander Residents) North Pacific. To determine the similarity between the repertoires, we used two methods: categorization by the independent observer and dynamic time warping. We found that the calls of Kamchatkan and Commander killer whales were more similar to each other, than calls of any of the three eastern North Pacific communities. This finding is consistent with the fact that there is a small exchange between the communities in the western North Pacific: the killer whales from the Kamchatkan community sometimes visit the Commander Islands and socialize with the local whales, and vice versa. In the eastern North Pacific, despite some area overlap between the three communities, no social contact has been registered between them, which can explain the higher level of divergence between their repertoires.