Spectrogram contour analysis of vocalizations of the Asian Small-Clawed Otter (Amblonyx cinerea)

Asian Small-Clawed Otters (Amblonyx cinerea) are small creatures found in many areas of southern and southeastern Asia, as well as Indonesia. They mate for life and communicate with one another using a wide variety of vocalizations from long, drawn out cries, to small yipping noises. The vocalizations of these otters were recorded in the back up area of the Newport Aquarium and Wellington Zoo and analyzed in Spectra Plus to determine the spectrogram contour of each vocalization. The goal of this research was to gather and compile data on the way the Asian Small-Clawed Otter communicates in order to better understand the way these animals live. These data will now be used to perform vocal clustering and classification using a Hidden Markov model, spectral moments, and geometric contour classification (Lofft, 2009; Williamson, 2014).