Searching for separation between frequency-modulated calls of blue and fin whales
Svenja Wöhle, Clea Parcerisas, Susannah Buchan, John Calambokidis, Kathleen M Stafford, Elena Schall · 2026
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Description
Blue whales and fin whales sing alike, and a 2026 study by Svenja Wöhle and co-authors hunts for a reliable way to tell their calls apart. Both species make sweeping calls that slide down in pitch, with overlapping ranges and lengths, which muddies long-term listening surveys.
Recordings from tags on known whales showed most traits overlap heavily. One measure, the span holding ninety percent of a call's energy, split the species partway: most fin calls ran under 0.6 seconds, while blue calls ran over 0.7. For clean calls from moored recorders, that rule gives a cautious classifier. A stronger route pairs deep learning features with a mapping method, set against the tagged calls as a reference.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Svenja Wöhle, Clea Parcerisas, Susannah Buchan, John Calambokidis, Kathleen M Stafford, Elena Schall |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 73 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |