Articles | Volume 15, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-75-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-75-2019
Research article
 | 
31 Jan 2019
Research article |  | 31 Jan 2019

Discovering sounds in Patagonia: characterizing sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis) downsweeps in the south-eastern Pacific Ocean

Sonia Español-Jiménez, Paulina A. Bahamonde, Gustavo Chiang, and Verena Häussermann

Cited articles

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Aguayo-Lobo, A., Torres, D., and Acevedo J.: Los mamíferos marinos de Chile: I. Cetacea, Serie Científica INACH, 48, 19–159, 1998. 
Baker, C. S., Dalebout, M. L., Funahashi, N., Ma, Y. U., Steel, D., and Lavery, S.: Market surveys of whales, dolphins and porpoises in Japan and Korea, 2003–2004, with reference to stock identity of sei whales, Paper SC/56/BC3 presented to the IWC Scientific Committee, available from the IWC Office, June 2004 (unpublished). 
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Short summary
Sei whales are one of the least known baleen whales. We found them in southern Chile, on the Patagonian coast. We set up hydrophones in the Penas Gulf in 2016 and 2017 to investigate how this Patagonian sei whale might be communicating. We could identify sei whale downs-weep calls (a type of vocalization that starts at a high frequency and ends at a lower). We found that sei whales in the Penas Gulf perform calls distinctly differently from the sounds previously described.