Details Male humpback whales sing a long and elaborate vocal display. Thousands of males can rapidly and synchronously change their population-specific song to a new version in as little as two months, a feat which is unparalleled in any other animal except humans. Despite our advances in understanding the cultural aspects of song, we have little understanding of song development at an individual level and how factors such as age may affect the cultural transmission of the song. Recent advances have enabled the age of humpback whales to be determined from skin samples that have been collected for genetic analyses (the Humpback Epigenetic Age Assay). Using acoustic and epigenetic data, this PhD project seeks to study how the age of males may govern changes in the song. The student will