Roger Payne was an American biologist who is well know for discovering and recording the singing of the humpback whale back in 1967. His recordings were released in an album in 1970. Payne’s release of “Songs of the Humpback Whale” was so popular that National Geographic excerpted it in 1979 for a so-called Flexi-disc included in that year’s January issue. Payne died last month at the age of 88.