TOWARDS A BOTTLENOSE DOLPHINWHISTLE ETHOGRAM FROM THESHANNON ESTUARY, IRELAND

摘要

An ethogram of whistle types from the Shannon Estuary is presented. A total of 1715 whistlesrecorded over a three-year period between 2003 and 2005 were analysed. They were categorisedinto six fundamental shapes and 25 sub-categories. The most common whistle type encountered inthe analysis was a simple rising tone. Whistles ranged in duration from 0.061 to 1.61 seconds. Whis-tle contour mean frequencies ranged between 13.21kHz and 7.71kHz, but there was a great deal ofvariability in all characteristics of the whistles within each category.