1. A method for identifying the species, appearance or other characteristics of an animal based on vocalizations, comprising: a. capturing the sound of an animal vocalization onto a digital device as sampled digital audio data; b. performing signal analysis on the sampled digital audio data to extract a plurality of analysis features that describe low-level time-domain and/or frequency-domain properties of the sampled digital audio data; c. using the plurality of extracted analysis features to perform audio onset detection and/or segmentation to determine break-points in time that describe individual notes, chirps, or time-segments (hereinafter “Parts”) of the vocalization captured in the sampled digital audio data; and d. using information in the plurality of analysis features to identify a match within a collection of similar analysis features extracted or derived from vocalizations of a plurality of animals of a plurality of known species.