Scientists collect the sounds of the "underwater orchestra" in a single library

An international group of scientists presented a detailed project on archiving the sounds of sea creatures - with recordings provided by both research scientists and volunteers. Such an audio library could help save endangered species, expand scientific knowledge and, perhaps, even identify creatures hitherto unknown.

According to Dr. Miles Parsons of the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, the idea is not new, but now it is getting serious development.

Sound can be a great way to communicate underwater, both at long distances (whales use it) and in conditions of limited visibility.

It is believed that all 126 known species of marine mammals use sound. Reef fish emit characteristic clicks. When hunting, penguins also broadcast short, high-pitched sounds in the water column. Marine biologists also know of at least a hundred sound-producing invertebrates, such as snapping shrimp, but this is almost certainly the tip of a huge iceberg.

It is often much easier to determine the presence of an animal by acoustics than visually. Parsons spent a lot of time collecting and transmitting underwater recordings to other experts in the hope of finding out which species live in a particular place.

The authors of the project believe that the archive can become a reference library of sound sources of wildlife, a portal for storing data on individual sources and soundscapes, an educational platform for scientific AI, etc.