{
  "abstract": "Killer whales, humpback whales, fin whales, and sperm whales converged in a fjord system in Northern Norway during the 2023-2024 winter, where whale watching and fishing vessels add to the acoustic scene. Cetaceans are intensely studied for their acoustic behaviour and communication, and the co-occurrence of four species in confined waters offers a unique opportunity to record them with hydrophone arrays. We present WhaleSonic, a raw acoustic dataset recorded with two synchronised array systems. Four drifting buoys, each carrying a tetrahedral hydrophone array, captured 78 hours of calibrated recordings; seven bottom-mounted hydrophones yielded 52 days of continuous data. Both systems are synchronised to UTC (<1 us and 3-7 ms) and positioned to 2 m accuracy. Transmission experiments and sound velocity measurements provide in-situ ground truth. All data are in physical units and a unified coordinate system, self-documented in HDF5 files, and published with open-source tools. WhaleSonic supports the development of multichannel algorithms for source separation, localisation, sound field analysis, and group communication in free-ranging cetaceans.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 18,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "J. Rychen"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Berg"
    },
    {
      "name": "J. Cohen"
    },
    {
      "name": "I. Driscoll"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Eckerle"
    },
    {
      "name": "V. Falletta"
    },
    {
      "name": "O. Filatova"
    },
    {
      "name": "L. Gies"
    },
    {
      "name": "P. Hatt"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Hiss"
    },
    {
      "name": "F. Krimmer"
    },
    {
      "name": "C. Lorenz"
    },
    {
      "name": "J. G. Mine"
    },
    {
      "name": "C. Mommsen"
    },
    {
      "name": "F. S. Schmidt"
    },
    {
      "name": "R. L. E. M. Ubaghs"
    },
    {
      "name": "K. Wierucka"
    },
    {
      "name": "R. Hahnloser"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8jya357ve77bk.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.11.02.763576",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.763576v1.full",
  "id": "8jya357ve77bk",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.763576v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-ND",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-ND",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "animal behavior and cognition"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.763576v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-11-02",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8jya357ve77bk.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-04T00:21:30Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.11.02.763576",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.763576v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:animal behavior and cognition",
      "subfield": "zoology-behaviour"
    }
  ],
  "title": "WhaleSonic: Recordings of cetacean vocal behaviour with hydrophone arrays in Northern Norway",
  "title_text": "WhaleSonic: Recordings of cetacean vocal behaviour with hydrophone arrays in Northern Norway",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-05T00:20:52Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8jya357ve77bk",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}