Overview
- The research reanalyzed analog recordings of 26 male leopard seals from the 1990s off Eastern Antarctica with modern entropy analysis to decode song patterns.
- During the spring breeding season, males alternate between two minutes of underwater singing and two minutes of surfacing for air over sessions that can last up to 13 hours.
- Each seal uses the same set of five core notes but arranges them in unique sequences that function as individual acoustic signatures.
- Entropy measurements show these songs are as predictable as human nursery rhymes and occupy a midpoint between whale calls and complex human music in randomness.
- Researchers are preparing new field recordings to investigate call-type evolution, explore regional song variations and clarify the purpose of occasional female vocalizations.