1. Apparatus for identifying animal species from their vocalizations, comprising: a source of digital signal representative of at least one animal candidate vocalization; a feature extractor that receives the digital signal, recognizes notes therein and extracts phrases including plural notes and that produces a parametric representation of the extracted phrases; and a comparison engine that receives the parametric representation of at least one of the digital signal and the extracted phrases, and produces an output signal representing information about the animal candidate based on a likely match between the animal candidate vocalization and known animal vocalizations.