Seven decades of whale and dolphin sounds in new library

A new sound library has been launched with recordings from a wide variety of marine mammals, including nearly 40 species of whale and dolphin, which is freely available to the public as well as the scientific community. The Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database contains thousands of recordings from the last 7 decades which have been digitized and made available online.

The database is maintain by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute where William Watkins, after whom the database is named, carried out pioneering bioacoustic research of marine mammals. The archive includes the first ever sounds recorded of 51 species.