For tenner divers and underwater microphone have picked up loudly but rare cracking sounds from grey seals during match season . Seventeen years ago , Dr Ben Burville was amaze to mention the sound came not from the seal ' throats , as everyone thought , but from their front flippers acclaim together while underwater . Now , after years of effort , Burville has caught the moment on pic , revealing a signifier of communication never previously report in a marine mammalian .
Burville is a medical Dr. who has a spare-time activity of swim with seals , rather than a full - meter zoological researcher . The footage he has collected over old age of gaining the seals ' trust is unmatched . He is now teaming up with animal scientist from Australia ’s Monash University to meditate and describe the behavior he has film .
Dr David Hockingdescribes astonishment on run across Burville ’s clapping footage . “ We remember ' can you even clap underwater ? ' ” Hocking recite IFLScience . How could the audio be that loud with no airwave to compact , Hocking wondered . The piss would provide an obstruction preventing bringing the flipper together at swiftness .
There was nothing for it but for Hocking , fellow , and students to visit a local swimming pool to attempt to clap underwater themselves . “ We found it is quite promiscuous to do , ” Hocking said . The sound can not be hear above the airfoil , but Hocking later take his young child to swim lesson and learned human hands can clap loud enough underwater to be heard at the opposite end of a heavily used pool . Living in the weewee almost full time , it is not surprising gray-headed seals have learned to make their claps resonate .
Reporting inMarine Mammal Science , Hocking and Burville text file this deportment for the first time , purport Male bam to scare off rivals and attract mates . " cogitate of a chest - mystify male person gorilla , for example . Like seal clap , those chest beat carry two content : I am hard , remain away ; and I am potent , my gene are good , ” Hocking read in astatement .
Besides the fact that only Male have been keep clapping , and only during mating time of year , Hocking told IFLScience the most likely alternate possibility , that the claps warn off predators , does n’t fit observation . Gorillas and chimpanzees applaud to warn of peril , but “ the seal in the video recording is unbend , ” Hocking said .
Marine parks have famously trained cachet to spat as part of shows , but Hocking explained these are normally fur sealskin or sea Leo the Lion , whose large front flipper look more telling clapping than “ theT.rexesof the sealskin world , ” as he calls grey seal .
Sea social lion ' big front flippers make them better natator than true seals , but thin their adaptability . Hocking has previously shown grey seals use their flipper ' claws to reserve andtear their prey , and it appears this tractability has been accommodate to another economic consumption .
