Aloha Colleagues, It is my honor to let you know that Dr. Louis M. Herman’s final solo paper entitled “The multiple functions of male song within the humpback whale (*Megaptera novaeangliae*) mating system: review, evaluation, and synthesis,” has just been published in an on-line early view form in the journal *Biological Reviews*. Below, please find the full citation and abstract. To obtain a pdf of the paper, you can email me at pack@hawaii.edu. It is also with profound sadness that I must report to you that Dr. Herman passed away on August 3, 2016. Dr. Herman was a Professor Emeritus at University of Hawaii at Manoa, Founder and Director of the world-renowned Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, and President of the non-profit organization, The Dolphin Institute, dedicated to dolphins and whales through research, education and conservation. A memorial service for Dr. Herman was held at Punchbowl National Cemetery in Honolulu on August 26. Over 100 family members, friends, colleagues and students attended the service to bid Dr. Herman a final *aloha* and *mahalo*, and to pay their respects to his wife Hannah and daughter Elia. Dr. Herman was considered by many in marine mammal science to be a “giant” in the fields of dolphin cognition and humpback whale behavior. Together with his countless graduate students, undergraduates, interns and colleagues, Dr. Herman helped characterize many aspects of dolphin visual and auditory sensory perception, mapped out dolphin short-term memory skills and processes, described a host of dolphin cognitive abilities, and demonstrated that dolphins could comprehend sentences within acoustically and visually-based language systems. Also, in 1976, Dr. Herman pioneered the scientific study of humpback whales in Hawaiian waters and together with his students and colleagues created one of the longest continuous scientific studies of any whale species. Research carried out both in Hawaii and Alaska shed new light on humpback whale habitat use, migratory patterns, social organization, competitive behavior, feeding ecology, and song. Across Dr. Herman’s distinguished research career he edited two books and published over 160 papers on marine mammals. His discoveries on dolphins and whales were featured in more than 230 media articles, television and radio programs, and documentary films. In 2015, former students and staff from around the world gathered in Honolulu to celebrate Dr. Herman’s many accomplishments at a surprise “Festschrift.” An “In Memoriam” paper on Dr. Herman’s life and numerous scientific contributions is currently in press in the journal *Marine Mammal Science*. Dr. Herman’s passing is a tragic loss for his family and friends, for the scientific community, and for the broader public, many of whom were introduced to the intelligence of dolphins and the behavior of humpback whales through media presentations on Dr. Herman’s groundbreaking discoveries. After his passing, an article on Dr. Herman’s life and achievements appeared in the *New York Times* (see http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/science/louis-herman-who-talked-with-dolph...), and in numerous other media outlets around the world. In Dr. Herman’s memory, the Herman family has established the Louis M. Herman Scholarship Fund to support students engaged in cognitive and behavioral research of whales or dolphins. Contributions to the scholarship fund should be made out to *The Dolphin Institute* and addressed to The Dolphin Institute, P.O. Box 6279, Hilo, HI 96720, Attention: Louis M. Herman Scholarship Fund. For additional information, please contact Dr. Adam A. Pack at pack@hawaii.edu. Wishing you all a peaceful and happy holiday season, Adam A. Pack, Ph.D. Professor, University of Hawaii at Hilo Vice President and Director, The Dolphin Institute Herman, L. M. (2016). The multiple functions of male song within the humpback whale (*Megaptera novaeangliae*) mating system: review, evaluation, and synthesis. *Biological Reviews. *doi: 10.1111/brv.12309 ABSTRACT Humpback whales (*Megaptera novaeangliae*) are seasonal breeders, annually migrating from high-latitude summer feeding grounds to low-latitude winter breeding grounds. The social matrix on the winter grounds is a loose network of interacting individuals and groups and notably includes lone males that produce long bouts of complex song that collectively yield an asynchronous chorus. Occasionally, a male will sing while accompanying other whales. Despite a wealth of knowledge about the social matrix, the full characterization of the mating system remains unresolved, without any firm consensus, as does the function of song within that system. Here, I consider and critically analyse three proposed functions of song that have received the most attention in the literature: female attraction to individual singers, determining or facilitating male–male interactions, and attracting females to a male aggregation within the context of a lekking system. *Female attraction *suggests that humpback song is an advertisement and invitation to females, but field observations and song playback studies reveal that female visits to individual singers are virtually absent. Other observations suggest instead that females might convey their presence to singers (or to other males) through the percussive sounds of flipper or tail slapping or possibly through vocalizations. There is some evidence for *male–male interactions, both dominance and affiliative*: visits to singers are almost always other lone males not singing at that time. The joiner may be seeking a coalition with the singer to engage cooperatively in attempts to obtain females, or may be seeking to disrupt the song or to affirm his dominance. Some observations support one or the other intent. However, other observations, in part based on the brevity of most pairings, suggest that the joiner is prospecting, seeking to determine whether the singer is accompanying a female, and if not soon departs. In the *lekking hypothesis*, the aggregation of vocalizing males on a winter ground and the visits there by non-maternal females apparently for mating meet the fundamental definition of a lekking system and its role though communal display in attracting females to the aggregation, although not to an individual singer. Communal singing is viewed as a form of by-product mutualism in which individuals benefit one another as incidental consequences of their own selfish actions. Possibly, communal singing may also act to stimulate female receptivity. Thus, there are both limitations and merit in all three proposals. Full consideration of song as serving multiple functions is therefore necessary to understand its role in the mating system and the forces acting on the evolution of song. I suggest that song may be the prime vector recruiting colonists to new winter grounds pioneered by vagrant males as population pressures increase or as former winter grounds become unavailable or undesirable, with such instances documented relatively recently. Speculatively, song may have evolved historically as an aggregating call during the dynamic ocean conditions and resulting habitat uncertainties in the late Miocene–early Pliocene epochs when *Megaptera *began to proliferate. Early song may have been comprised of simpler precursor sounds that through natural selection and ritualization evolved into complex song. -- Adam A. Pack, Ph.D. Professor and Chair (Psychology) Departments of Psychology and Biology University of Hawai'i at Hilo 200 West Kawili Street Hilo, Hawai'i 96720 (Office Voice): 808-932-7076 (Email): pack@hawaii.edu "Do or do not; there is no try." Yoda