Scientists from Project Ceti (the Cetacean Translation Initiative, a non-profit organisation working to decode whale communication) have found that sperm whales off the Caribbean coast of Dominica change their distinctive click sequences — known as codas — when shipping vessels are nearby, speeding up their rhythms and shifting the types of sounds they produce. Researchers recorded more than 1,000 codas from 15 whales over four years and found the changes were so consistent that the whales' vocalisations alone could be used to predict whether ships were in the area. The findings, published in the journal Ecological Informatics, raise broader questions about whether the whales are actively communicating about the vessels or whether the noise is simply disrupting their voices — a distinction that could have significant implications for marine noise-pollution policy.