Revolutionary underwater camera records 46 fish species’ sounds in the wild, offering new hope for tracking threatened marine life

For over two millennia, humans have known that fish make sounds, yet we’ve barely scratched the surface of understanding their underwater conversations. A groundbreaking new device is changing that, offering fresh hope for protecting the thousands of marine species facing extinction.

Scientists at Cornell University have developed the UPAC-360° underwater audio-visual camera, a revolutionary tool that can isolate individual fish sounds from the cacophony of ocean noise and identify exactly which species made each vocalization. In a recent study published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, researchers used this technology to record and identify sounds from 46 different fish species in their natural habitat—the largest collection of wild fish sounds ever documented.

“We were shocked about how many fish we could record and identify in a relatively short amount of time,” said study coauthor Aaron Rice, a Cornell University ecologist. This breakthrough addresses a critical challenge in marine conservation: previous methods for studying fish communication required invasive techniques like capturing fish or using electric shocks to force vocalizations, often in laboratory settings that didn’t reflect natural behavior.

The implications for conservation are enormous. With more than 4,000 fish species currently listed as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered by the IUCN, this acoustic monitoring technology could help scientists track population changes, understand habitat preferences, identify breeding seasons, and pinpoint behaviors that make species vulnerable to threats—all without disturbing their natural environment.