MeerKAT: Meerkat Kalahari Audio Transcripts

The majority of the audio originates from acoustic collars (Edic Mini Tiny+ A77, Zelenograd, Russia, which sample at 8kHz with 10bit quantization) that were attached to the animals (41 individuals throughout both campaigns), where each file corresponds to a recording for a single individual and day. The remainder of the dataset was recorded using Marantz PMD661 digital recorders (Carlsbad, CA, U.S.) attached to directional Sennheiser ME66 microphones (Wedemark, Germany) sampling at 48kHz with 32bit quantization.

When recording, field researchers held the microphones close to the animals (within 1m). The data were recorded during times when meerkats typically forage for food by digging in the ground for small prey. See our paper and [1] and [2] for more details.

MeerKAT is released as 384 592 10-second samples, amounting to 1068 h, where 66 398 10-second samples (184 h) are labeled and ground-truth-complete; all call and recurring anthropogenic events in this 184 h are labeled. For further details, see [2]. All samples have been standardized to a sample rate of 8 kHz with 16-bit quantization, sufficient to capture the majority of meerkat vocalization frequencies (the first two formants are below the Nyquist frequency of 4 kHz).

The total dataset size of 59 GB (61 GB, including the label files) is comparatively small, making MeerKAT easily accessible and portable despite its extensive length. Each 10-second file has an accompanying HDF5 label file that lists label categories, start and end time offsets (s), and a "focal" designation indicating whether the call was given by the collar-wearing or followed individual or not. By agreement with the Kalahari Research Centre (KRC), we have made these data available in a way that can further machine learning research without compromising the ability of the KRC to continue conducting valuable ecological research on these data.

Consequently, the filenames of the 10-second samples have been randomly sampled, and their temporal order and individual identity cannot be recovered, but can be requested from us. [1] Demartsev, V. et al. Signalling in groups: New tools for the integration of animal communication and collective movement.

Methods

Ecol. Evol. (2022).

[2] Demartsev, V. et al. Mapping vocal interactions in space and time differentiates signal broadcast versus signal exchange in meerkat groups. Philos. Trans.

R. Soc. Lond. B Biol.

Sci. 379 (2024)