MarMam - 

My co-authors and I are pleased to announce the following publication in JASA:

Short first click intervals in echolocation trains of three species of deep diving odontocetes.

Abstract

All odontocetes produce echolocation clicks as part of their vocal repertoire. In this paper the authors analysed inter-click-intervals in recordings from suction cup tags with a focus on the first inter-click interval of each click train. The authors refer to shorter first inter-click intervals as short first intervals (SFIs). The authors found that the context of SFI occurrence varies across three deep-diving species. In Blainville's beaked whales, 87% of click trains that were preceded by a terminal buzz started with SFIs. In Cuvier's beaked whales, only sub-adult animals produced notable amounts of SFIs. In contrast, sperm whales were much more likely to produce SFIs on the first click train of a dive. While the physiological and/or behavioural reasons for SFI click production are unknown, species differences in their production could provide a window into the evolution of odontocete echolocation.

Dunn, C., Tyack, P., Miller, P., and Rendell, L. 2017. Short first click intervals in echolocation trains of three species of deep diving odontocetes. JASA 141(900). doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4976084.

You can download the manuscript from: http://asa.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1121/1.4976084, or email me for a pdf copy (cdunn@bahamaswhales.org).

kind regards

Charlotte