Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii), recording 1

The Weddell seal lives in fast ice areas, close to the Antarctic ice shelf edge. At PALAOA we can hear its vocalizations almost year-round (few/no calls in February). Weddell seals have a large vocal repertoire, of which 14 call types were recorded at PALAOA. Their repertoire is known to differ between breeding populations. Some of these sounds are thought to be produced by males to defend underwater territories. The most typical calls are the 'Falling chirp sequence' (well visible in the snippet) and the trill. The sound examples also contain distant calls of leopard seals.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds.