Listen to a toadfish’s grunt! AI helps decode a ‘symphony’ of ocean sounds

A diver places an underwater recorder in a coral reef in Moorea, French Polynesia, to capture the sounds of fishes and invertebrates, such as snapping shrimp. Photograph: Xavier Raick

On Goa’s coral reef in India, the marine scientists lowered their underwater microphones beneath the waves and recorded a complex cacophony of swirling currents, fish and plantlife.

But rather than spend months deciphering it using human ears, arguing over which click was a snapping shrimp and which snort a type of grunter fish, they plugged the sounds into an algorithm that correctly identified four species in a matter of minutes.