The mysterious grunts and moans of the humpback whale have long captivated humans—so much so that we put recordings of them onto the Voyager spacecraft to convey the sounds of Earth to other life forms. A new study published today in Science reveals an unexpected similarity between human and humpback vocalizations: The songs have a statistical structure similar to that of human language…

Some animals, such as dogs, make their vocalizations instinctively—they don’t need to learn how to bark. But like human language, humpback whale song is culturally transmitted. Male humpbacks learn the songs, thought to be used to attract mates, from other males. Also like language, humpback whale songs have patterns and structure—individual “elements,” such as a single grunt, combine to form phrases, strung together into “themes” that make up a song, which can last 30 minutes.