Vocal complexity of Antillean manatees

What is it about?

Here we found that manatees produce different types of vocalisations at different rates depending on sex and enclosure type. We also found that manatees present individuality in their Squeak vocalisations, suggesting that manatees produce signature vocalisations. These vocalisations may aid in individual recognition and conspecific communication. We suggest that a vocalisation library should be created with manatee calls in order to facilitate the passive acoustic monitoring of individual manatees in the wild.

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Photo by Maegan Luckiesh on Unsplash

Photo by Maegan Luckiesh on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our findings are important since little is known about Antillean manatee vocalisations, especially with regards to signature vocalisations. This new information suggests that each individual manatee produces vocalisations which contain information about individual identity.