Extended vocal library: cetacean sounds by behaviour

How cetaceans communicate

Cetaceans are virtuosos of underwater acoustics. Their sound emissions cover a striking diversity: ultra-brief echolocation clicks, modulated whistles, the breeding songs of humpback whales, the cultural codas of sperm whales, the individual signature whistles of dolphins, cohesion calls, alarm calls. This library classifies them by type, behaviour and species.

Also worth listening to

Round out your exploration of these sounds with the cetacean sound library, the quantified acoustic profile, the audio quiz and passive acoustic monitoring (PAM).

A typology of sounds: clicks, whistles, songs

Cetacean vocalisations fall into three broad families. Clicks, brief and broadband, serve echolocation in all odontocetes, from the harbour porpoise (130 kHz) to the sperm whale (10 Hz to 30 kHz). Modulated tonal whistles carry intraspecific communication: the common bottlenose dolphin develops an individual signature whistle in its first weeks of life.

The structured songs of mysticetes, humpback whale, fin whale, blue whale, can exceed 180 dB re 1 µPa and carry over hundreds of kilometres in the SOFAR channel. Sperm whale codas, rhythmic sequences of clicks, identify cultural clans from the Pacific to the Caribbean: a rare case of vocal culture among mammals.