A previous study recorded a greater number of 66 unique songs, but over a much longer period of one year.
While other species such as the humpback, sperm, and blue whale also sing, it is the bowhead that appears to have the greatest number and diversity of songs.
Such insights have come only recently, as the remote Arctic habitat of the bowhead whale, covered with thick sea ice through much of the year, makes them extremely difficult to observe.
The whales are now known to share songs (Credit: Kelvin Aitken/Alamy)