The long-range echo scene of the sperm whale biosonar
Sperm whales use their gigantic nose to produce the most powerful sounds in the animal kingdom, presumably to echolocate deep-sea prey at long ranges and possibly to debilitate prey. To test these hypotheses, we deployed sound recording tags (DTAG-4) on the tip of the nose of three sperm whales. One...
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crroyalsociety:10.1098/rsbl.2020.0134 2024-09-15T18:37:32+00:00 The long-range echo scene of the sperm whale biosonar Tønnesen, Pernille Oliveira, Cláudia Johnson, Mark Madsen, Peter Teglberg Regional Foundation for Science and Technology National Danish Research Council 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0134 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0134 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0134 en eng The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/-/media/journals/author/Licence-to-Publish-20062019-final.pdf https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ Biology Letters volume 16, issue 8, page 20200134 ISSN 1744-9561 1744-957X journal-article 2020 crroyalsociety https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0134 2024-09-02T04:21:09Z Sperm whales use their gigantic nose to produce the most powerful sounds in the animal kingdom, presumably to echolocate deep-sea prey at long ranges and possibly to debilitate prey. To test these hypotheses, we deployed sound recording tags (DTAG-4) on the tip of the nose of three sperm whales. One of these recordings yielded over 6000 echo streams from organisms detected up to 144 m ahead of the whale, supporting a long-range prey detection function of the sperm whale biosonar. The whale navigated this complex acoustic scene by maintaining a stable, long-range acoustic gaze suggesting continual resource evaluation. Less than 10% of the echoic organisms recorded by the tag were targeted for capture and only 18% of the buzzes were emitted within the 50 m depth interval of maximum organism encounter rate, demonstrating echo-guided prey selection. Buzzes were initiated more than 20 m from the prey, showing that sperm whales do not debilitate their prey with sound, but trade echo levels for reduced forward masking and rapid updates on prey location in keeping with the lower manoeuvrability of these large predators. We conclude that the powerful biosonar of sperm whales enables long-range echolocation and selection of prey, but not acoustic debilitation. Article in Journal/Newspaper Sperm whale The Royal Society Biology Letters 16 8 20200134 |
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The Royal Society |
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crroyalsociety |
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English |
description |
Sperm whales use their gigantic nose to produce the most powerful sounds in the animal kingdom, presumably to echolocate deep-sea prey at long ranges and possibly to debilitate prey. To test these hypotheses, we deployed sound recording tags (DTAG-4) on the tip of the nose of three sperm whales. One of these recordings yielded over 6000 echo streams from organisms detected up to 144 m ahead of the whale, supporting a long-range prey detection function of the sperm whale biosonar. The whale navigated this complex acoustic scene by maintaining a stable, long-range acoustic gaze suggesting continual resource evaluation. Less than 10% of the echoic organisms recorded by the tag were targeted for capture and only 18% of the buzzes were emitted within the 50 m depth interval of maximum organism encounter rate, demonstrating echo-guided prey selection. Buzzes were initiated more than 20 m from the prey, showing that sperm whales do not debilitate their prey with sound, but trade echo levels for reduced forward masking and rapid updates on prey location in keeping with the lower manoeuvrability of these large predators. We conclude that the powerful biosonar of sperm whales enables long-range echolocation and selection of prey, but not acoustic debilitation. |
author2 |
Regional Foundation for Science and Technology National Danish Research Council |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Tønnesen, Pernille Oliveira, Cláudia Johnson, Mark Madsen, Peter Teglberg |
spellingShingle |
Tønnesen, Pernille Oliveira, Cláudia Johnson, Mark Madsen, Peter Teglberg The long-range echo scene of the sperm whale biosonar |
author_facet |
Tønnesen, Pernille Oliveira, Cláudia Johnson, Mark Madsen, Peter Teglberg |
author_sort |
Tønnesen, Pernille |
title |
The long-range echo scene of the sperm whale biosonar |
title_short |
The long-range echo scene of the sperm whale biosonar |
title_full |
The long-range echo scene of the sperm whale biosonar |
title_fullStr |
The long-range echo scene of the sperm whale biosonar |
title_full_unstemmed |
The long-range echo scene of the sperm whale biosonar |
title_sort |
long-range echo scene of the sperm whale biosonar |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0134 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0134 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0134 |
genre |
Sperm whale |
genre_facet |
Sperm whale |
op_source |
Biology Letters volume 16, issue 8, page 20200134 ISSN 1744-9561 1744-957X |
op_rights |
https://royalsociety.org/-/media/journals/author/Licence-to-Publish-20062019-final.pdf https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0134 |
container_title |
Biology Letters |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
8 |
container_start_page |
20200134 |
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1810481915563606016 |