Analysis Of Underwater Vocalization Of Killer Whale,Antarctic Minke Whale And Humpback Whale In Antarctic

The waters around Antarctic is one of the ideal areas for underwater vocalization observation of Marine mammals.However,the domestic research in this field is almost blank.Based on the underwater sounds data of marine mammals obtained during the Chinese 33 rd Antarctic expedition,this paper focused on the vocalizations of three whale types in Antarctic: killer whale,Antarctic minke whale and humpback whale.After the recognition of sounds types,Killer whale sounds were recorded in the waters of Prydz bay and McMurdo bay.These sounds including: whistles,pulsed calls,inverted “u” shaped calls and echolocation signals.Antarctic minke whales' sounds were recorded in Prydz bay,including downsweeps and bio-ducks.The sounds of humpback whales were recorded in waters near the Great Wall Station and the Bellinsgauzen Sea,besides,these sounds are all social sounds.Then the parameters of these vocalizations were analyzed and the main conclusions are as follows:1)The inverted “u” shaped calls of killer whales obtained in Prydz bay,the high frequency social sounds of humpback whales obtained in Maxwell bay and Bellingshausen sea,and the overlapping whistle signals obtained in McMurdo bay have not been reported in Antarctic waters,which have enhanced the understanding of the vocalization of marine mammals in Antarctic.2)The pulse interval variation of the echolocation signal of the killer whale in Prydz bay showed a significant regular pattern,which has not been found in other seas around the world.This regularity may be the result of the killer whales adjusting its signal to adapt to the multi-sea ice environment in Prydz bay.3)Killer whales in Prydz bay and McMurdo bay all tend to emit short duration whistles with non-harmonic.Moreover,the duration distribution of the signals in both areas is close,while the frequency distribution in McMurdo bay is more concentrated.Killer whales in both areas all tend to emit biphonic call type of pulsed calls,and there is a significant frequency boundary between the low-frequency component and high-frequency component,of which 6.1 kHz is in Prydz bay,5.3 kHz is in McMurdo bay.