Called “canaries of the sea” these Arctic odontocetes have a very cheery and colorful sounding social vocalization repertoire. Second to the bottlenose dolphin, Belugas are probably the most anthropomorphized of the cetaceans (folks personally identify with them). This is likely due to the appearance of a “smile” on their mouth, and the fact that they have very flexible necks, so they can look around by shifting their heads like humans. They also have a very plastic melon that can change shape to “mind-blowing” degrees. Given that the melon is associated with bio-sonar and hearing, this indicates a very complex relationship with sound.

Right whales are surface feeders that inhabit shallow areas close to shore, easily subjecting them to ship collisions, or “ship strikes.” Their niche also made them easy prey for commercial whalers, so currently there are exceedingly few right whales.

Cousins to the Bowhead whales, many of their calls are in the range of human hearing. Their moans and whelps suggest elephants, and the North Atlantic males produce a “gunshot” sound, so sound recordings could be mistaken for an elephant hunt.

That these animals are rare and threatened has brought a lot of focus to their preservation. This has facilitated the development of a fabulous monitoring program in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary designed, installed, and managed by Chris Clark’s lab (Cornell). Much is being learned about the whales, but also about shipping noise and masking models.

Probably the most ubiquitous sound in shallow temperate waters and thus the curse of all marine life sound recordists is the sound of the snapping or “pistol” shrimp (Cragnon Synalpheus, C. Alpheus). They produce an extremely loud pop (source level 220dB re 1 uPa or 80 kPa at 4 cm). This pop stuns their prey which they can then dismember and eat without further ado. They live in burrows and can be easily heard as a popcorn or crackling sound anywhere in the coastal ocean where you might submerge your head. Bioacoustician John Potter used this sound as an ‘acoustical illumination’ to resolve shapes underwater. Just as our eyes see light reflecting off of objects allowing us to see them, Dr. Potter speculated that the sound of the shrimp would reflect off of submerged objects allowing sea animals to “see” them in a form of “passive sonar.” If he is correct, it would explain how nocturnal animals might perceive their surroundings when there is little or no light available. If he is correct it would also indicate that there is something about fish hearing that we don’t have quite right yet, as most fish audiograms indicate that they can’t hear in frequency bands that would allow for this type of ‘acoustical illumination’ perception.

Gray whales are coastal animals, always swimming above the continental shelf. The gray whales of the Atlantic were slaughtered by Portuguese whalers who because of their proximity to the shores hunted them as early as 500 AD. They migrate along the coasts, breeding in lagoons and estuaries in the southern extents of their migrations. Old whalers called them “mud whales” because they forage for invertebrates buried in the mud. (They filter out the food from the mud with their short, bristly baleen that is reminiscent of a deck brush.) They were also called “Devil Fish” because unlike all other whales (except the Sperm whale) they aggressively attacked the whalers, maiming or killing one out of four who worked the fishery. The remaining gray whales are in the Pacific. The Western Pacific Grays are seriously endangered (130 animals left with only 20 breeding females) and recently set upon by oil and gas operations in Sakhalin, Russia where they feed in the summer. The Eastern Pacific grays are currently in a pretty healthy population state (20,000+). Having not been hunted since 1936 when their populations sank below commercial viability. This population now only has to contend with habitat displacement and ship strikes. In the summer of 2011 a grey whale was sited in the Mediterranean and later off of Spain. The speculation was that it was an intrepid scout (or confused individual) from the Western Pacific population seeking alternative habitat. Their vocal repertoire consists of grunts, knocks, croaks, bangs, and grunts. Not sounds that humans find compelling, but probably pretty important to the Grays.

Humpbacks became the iconic whale that turned the tide of public opinion against commercial whaling after Roger Payne released a recoding of their evocative songs in 1972. “The Songs of the Humpback Whale” became the first ‘Gold Album’ (a million sales) produced by an animal. The songs are long, complex, and include varied sections – stanzas and codas, lasting 10 – 20 minutes and often repeated for hours on end and are sung by the males. All males in a given regional group will sing the same song throughout the breeding season. The songs will change each year, so a group and a year can be identified by the song. Recently there has been evidence that song elements migrate between some groups over time.

The sperm whale was hunted voraciously up until 1988 for the waxy spermaceti oil in its cranium. It was found to be an exceedingly fine lubricant for machinery because it has interesting temperature-dependant density and viscosity properties. It is generally believed that the whale regulates these properties to mediate its buoyancy allowing it to easily dive when the oil is denser than water and helping them surface when it is less dense. The energy economy of this exchange facilitates dives as deep a 3km (almost 10,000 feet) making the sperm whale the deepest diving vertebrate known. (Pressures at 3km are over 4400psi or 300 atmospheres.) The spermaceti organ is also has very complex acoustical features, allowing the focused transmission and reception of their characteristic bio-sonar. The sperm whale “clicks” when heard in aggregation sound like a busy team of carpenters hammering away on a job – giving them the colloquial name of “carpenter fish.” The sperm whale, like the gray whale (and unlike any of the other whales) will attack their aggressors, which made the fishery exceedingly dangerous for whalers (although even more dangerous for the whales).

A descriptive name given on account of the many ways the head suggest “bows;” the profile of the head resembles the “bow of a boat,” the upper jaw is arched like an archer’s bow, and the baleen arches like a taught bow. The baleen in the bowhead is the longest of the baleen whales with plates reaching 4 meters (15 feet). The bowhead has over 300 plates of baleen on each side of their head, so while they were hunted for oil, the baleen was also sought for many products until plastic became the rage – another case where ironically the petroleum industry had a hand in saving the whales. This cousin of the Right Whale resides exclusively in the Arctic. They follow the advance and retreat of the lead ice and can break through 12” of ice, and are often accompanied by belugas. The lifespan of most whales have been framed in the context of human longevity, despite the lack of any substantiating evidence. This was until a Bowhead was recently taken by subsistence hunters who found an ivory spear point lodged in its blubber of a type that had not been used for 200 years.

‘Dolphins’ comprise the largest family of the cetaceans, with over forty species within some 17 genera varying in size from 1.2 m (4 ft) and 40 kg (90 lb) for the Maui's dolphin – Cephalorhynchus hectori maui (a big name for a small animal), up to 9.5 m (30 ft) and 10 tonnes – the orca or orca orcinus (a small name for a big animal). All dolphins are pack animals that hunt and play cooperatively. They also are representative of the major division of the cetaceans between the Mysticetes (‘mustache’ or baleen whales) and Odontocetes (toothed whales). The difference between these divisions is akin to the terrestrial division between cows and wolves; the large Mysticetes graze on massive gullet-full quantities of small organisms, the Odontocetes pack-hunt prey which they pick off individually. The Dolphin’s vocalization repertoire reflects their high-speed social and tactical adaptations. They use mid frequency vocalizations for social interaction (within our human auditory band), and high frequency bio-sonar to perceive their surroundings and “see” their prey. The other most familiar members of the sub-order “odontoceti” are the porpoises (Phocenidae) with a similar behavioral repertoire to the dolphins. One simple distinguishing difference is that the dolphins have round teeth, and the porpoises have flat teeth – a distinction that hopefully remains only academic to the reader. The dentition of other odontocetes (from narwhals to beaked whales) is for too varied, and a bit too tangential to outline here.

“Croaker” is a broad colloquial name used in many English speaking areas to name various fish which fall under the Sciaenidae family (under the Perciformes order). Most Croakers are gregarious, community animals and make noise by way of oscillating their swim bladder.

Sciaenids chorus in groups often temporally aligned with diel (day-night) cycles. Some also chorus spatially, sequentially signaling in waves like “stadium waves” across areas as wide as 25km.

Like most of the fish featured in this website, the Grunt is classified under the order Perciformes – the “ray finned” fishes. Perciformes are mostly gregarious fishes (found in groups) so it is not surprising that they would have some form of sound communication. The Grunt is from the Haemulidae family, which are characterized by (among other things) their making noise with “pharyngeal teeth” which are located in the gullet and may serve as a pre-digestive feature as well as a noise making feature.

Grunt may be a bit too prosaic a description of their sound (from which comes their name). It was probably characterized by the sound of the fish on the dock and not their sound in the water. More complexity is revealed in these underwater recordings.

The midshipman (Porichthys notatus) is a small fish with a large sound. Typically around 6” they inhabit mud flats and inner-tidal zones. Like freshwater carp they can breathe both in and out of water. They are “oviparous” meaning that they deposit eggs, in nests which the males tend.

These animals reached stardom in the US about 30 years ago when the extremely loud humming sound was disrupting the lives of houseboat residents in upscale Sausalito harbor, California. The alien sound was attributed to the military, to some sinister industrial project, and even to extra-terrestrials.

The sample here is produced by two males presumably ‘courting’ a female by way of swim-bladder oscillation. The phasing of their chorus (small time domain shifts over a frequency-synchronized signal) could carry some imbedded information about breeding fitness, or it could be a way of ambiguating the actual source of the signal to predators, or…?

CD Supplement to: “Sounds of the Western North Atlantic Fishes” by Fish & Mowbray, 1970. CD ©University of Rhode Island, 2001.

The Opsanus Tau is related to the Midshipman under the family Batrachoididae (toad-like fish) and inhabit the same type of inner tidal areas. They also breathe air out of water and given the habitat and the structure of the pectoral fins they likely have some kinship to the various fishes that made their way out of water and on to land some 200 million years ago.

Their characteristic “boat whistle” is produced by oscillating muscles around the swim bladder, which they use as a resonator. These muscles are one of the fastest vertebrate muscles.

The Bar Jack is an elegant fish in the Jack (Carangidae) family resident to the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, extending along the coast of Brazil associated with coral reefs. Most often schooling and feeding pelagically, but occasionally foraging solo in shallow sand.

Their sound is produced by way of both grinding teeth and swim bladder oscillation.

Most accounts of the Bar Jack include a hetrospecific foraging relationship with the Puddingwife Wrasse – that the wrasse and the jack formed foraging teams that the Jack would even defend this team relationship against encroachment by conspecifics (other Bar Jacks).

“Drum” is a broad colloquial name used in many English speaking areas to name various fish under the Sciaenidae family that make “drumming” sounds. The Black Drum makes these sounds by way of pharyngeal teeth.

These fish can get quite large – 100 kg (45 lbs) and their low frequency “drumming” can transmit a lot of energy over long distances. Southwest Florida residents living along canals frequently hear black drum calls in their homes during the spawning season. This is possible because the low frequencies of these calls are able to travel through the ground and into the walls and floors of their homes.

This became a significant problem in one housing development that featured protected waterfront access to every home. This channelized environment made prime habitat for drums (which are protected) and excluding habitat to their predators – mostly sharks. As a consequence members of the neighborhood association have become deeply intimate with the life cycles and natural history of the Pogonias cromis.

What could be more “perciforme” than an actual perch? Perch are shoaling animals and can be found in large aggregations. It is hard to determine if these chorusing perch are synchronizing their pulses, or interleaving them. The knocking characteristic indicates that sound production is probably by way of their swim bladders.

What they are conveying through the sound behavior is a bit of a mystery, but one incentive for chorusing is for the shoal to understand its extents. If a predator encroaches on the perimeter of the group their presence would cause changes in the chorusing behavior of the animals near the predator – alerting the others of the encroachment.

Another incentive might be group cohesion – akin to why humans sing songs together. Fish chorusing of this nature occurs often at dusk and dawn – a behavior that is also found in chorusing terrestrial animals like crickets and birds.

At 7 – 10 meters ( 23- 33 feet) Minke whales are the smallest of the Mysticetes or “baleen whales.” As such they are also the smallest of the Rorquals – which include (from ‘small’ to large) the Bryde’s, Sei, Fin, and Blue whale (the largest of any vertebrates to live on the planet).

Rorqual vocalizations are mostly comprised of very low frequency, long wavelength repetitive pulses or “groans” below human frequency discrimination and longer than our typical time frame, so samples are usually “sped up” to 10 times speed so we can hear them and recognize patterns.

Much of study of the rorqual family looks at the individual animal, but the subspecies have regional-specific behavioral distinctions, suggesting aggregate or community adaptive behaviors.

One regional vocalization of the Minke from the Great Barrier Reef area is the “star wars” call . Another, called the “boing” was only recently associated with the North Atlantic Minkes. The chorusing sample provided here is from the West Indies; played back 10x speed the sound remarkably like crickets.

Male bearded seals are found in the Arctic and have a complex vocal repertoire which they bring out during breeding season during the Arctic Spring (March through July). They also have very pronounced and thick vibrissae, or “whiskers” indicating that they also have a deep physiological investment in perceiving particle motion in their habitat (a characteristic of acoustical energy in water).

Found in the Antarctic, the Weddell seal’s complex descending sweeps and chirping calls are produced by the males during breeding season, evidence that this vocalization probably has something to do with courtship, advertizing breeding fitness, and/or territorial announcements. Signals are complex in frequency, amplitude, and time domain. Not enough is known about these animals to understand what accounts for the complexity.