WildandNatureFan — Finding Your Way With Sound
#bat#beluga Published: 2021-06-15 19:33:04 +0000 UTC; Views: 5100; Favourites: 36; Downloads: 2 Redirect to originalDescription
What does the big brown bat and the beluga whale have in common? They both have echolocation. Big brown bats use echolocation to navigate and to find prey. They emit tiny squeaks out into their environment and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. Just like bats, beluga whales also use echolocation, but for movement, communication, to find breathing holes in the ice, and to hunt in dark waters. Their head houses an echolocation organ called the melon, which in this species is large and deformable. As with that, beluga whales produce a rapid sequence of clicks through the melon, as these sounds spread through the water at a speed of nearly 1.6 km per second. The sound waves reflect from objects and return as echoes that are heard and interpreted by the beluga whale. And also, beluga whales swallow prey whole, not chewing.
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