ScienceBBC Wildlife MagazineSleeping elephant seals help scientists find elusive whales in remote Southern Ocean
Scientists fitted listening devices to sleeping elephant seals to record whale and dolphin calls across the remote Southern Ocean, picking up humpback, blue, fin and sperm whale sounds.
Attaching listening devices to the seals is one of the best ways of studying remote ocean environments.
Between 2017 and 2020, researchers fitted acoustic tags to nine female elephant seals to record whale and dolphin calls across the remote Southern Ocean.
The seals were ideal research partners because their quiet sleeping dives let hydrophones pick up humpback, blue, fin and sperm whale songs, as well as a surprising number of dolphin vocalisations.
Lead researcher Christophe Guinet says the team plans to equip more seals with recorders in coming years, with the tags even able to detect a seal's own heartbeat and feeding sounds.
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