Project CETI: finding structure in sperm whale clicks
Project CETI analyzed about 9,000 sperm whale click patterns, called codas, recorded off Dominica over more than a decade. The team found that whales vary the rhythm and tempo of codas, stretch them to match each other, and add extra clicks, combining these features into a large set of distinct signals.
What they learned
Whale codas turned out to combine features, but what they mean is still unknown
From public sources: the team expected to find a fixed set of click patterns. Instead, whales combine rhythm, tempo, small timing shifts and extra clicks into many variations that depend on the conversation. The authors stress that this shows structure, not meaning: what most codas communicate is still unknown, and they plan field work to test it.
The problem
Sperm whale communication has been recorded for decades, but researchers lacked the tools to see the structure in it.
What the AI does
Project CETI uses machine learning to study sperm whale recordings. The sources for this finding do not say which methods this particular analysis used.
Papers, data and other outputs
Sources
- Sperm whale phonetic alphabet proposed for the first time, Project CETI (7 May 2024)
- Sharma et al., Contextual and combinatorial structure in sperm whale vocalisations, Nature Communications (2024)