“While we may not all be seal nerds, we’re sound nerds.”

Can your synthesizer do this? Weddell seals regularly produce ultrasonic vocalizations underwater.

The breakthrough discovery announced in 2020 was that Weddell seals also make ultrasonic calls—including when they’re under the polar ice, where they’re able to swim up to about 80 minutes on a single breath. Even the researchers thought of ARP synthesizers. (Okay, they’re not synth nerds, so they said “Star Wars” but – they’re not wrong.) Captured on a digital hydrophone, their ultransensitive broadband mic picked up high-pitched sounds that a standard mic (and our ears) missed.

Via cdm

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