the sounds down below....

Here's a quick one before I head out. My co-worker Creed sent me this link to recordings of the different sounds oceanic fish make. Now, like most people, years of seeing underwater documentaries has left me with the impression that the seas are primarily silent excepting whales, dolphins and the occasional island of trash gliding against a barrier reef. Turns out its bull. Diver's oxygen tanks and sealed goggle cameras mask the the veritable symphony of sound that exists down below. Here's a link to the sounds that fish make. The accompanying article in the NYTimes is rather interesting and has a nice little Rhode Island shout out. Turns out, when it comes to cataloging fish sounds.... We're Number 1! We're Number 1!

The most definitive tome on fish sounds was published in 1973 by the auspiciously named Marie Poland Fish and William H. Mowbray. Working at the Narragansett Marine Laboratory at the University of Rhode Island, they were granted access to Navy audio recordings made to detect enemy submarines. Because noisy underwater life kept interfering with the military’s objectives, the authors were asked to tease out the biologic from the manmade. The resulting work, “Sounds of Western North Atlantic Fishes: A Reference File of Underwater Biologic Sounds,” identifies the vocalizations of over 150 fish.