it appears that there were a number of these tetrapods who were not entirely enthused by the reliable forces of gravity, so back 55-64 million years ago they began migrating back into the water. These became the cetaceans…
World Whale Day 2025!
Category: Ocean Life
Fish (and whale) ears 4
Marine animal bodies are close to the density of water, so unlike airborne sound that bounces off the bodies of terrestrial animals, water-borne sound can pass right through – opening up the question; do marine animals have ways of hearing through their bodies?
Fish Ears 3 – Acoustical Daylight
Needlefish at night – photo Umeed Mistry Our last newsletter was an overview of the phenomenology of the sound perception of fishes in the context of lab-produced auditory threshold testing – revealing that measuring the acoustical sensitivities of fishes in…
Fish Ears 2 – Fishes hear where they are…
Fishes can “hear” their surroundings though their bodies – sensing where they are. Are they “aware” of this? Perhaps no more than we are “aware” of seeing through our eyes.
Fish Ears 1 – What do fishes really hear?
Most of the auditory threshold research on fishes has assumed that they use sound much as mammals do. We found this assumption to be somewhat out in the weeds…
Diving into the World of Orcas with Todd Thimios
A close encounter with a pod of wild orcas is a dream for many divers. As the ocean’s apex predator, orcas are equally as graceful as they are powerful.
Underwater Internet of Things starting to sneak up on us.
Under the auspices of the International Standards Organization (ISO), we’re working on the “Underwater Internet of Things” (UIoT). Our task is to make sure that it wreaks the least amount of havoc on marine life.
Now we’re getting somewhere! (v.2.0)
New pile-driving technologies promise to tame the unruly noise of installing shallow-water windfarms.
NOAA’s North Atlantic Right Whale ship-strike workshop
Last week I participated in a North Atlantic Right Whale (NARW) Vessel Strike risk reduction workshop. This issue is really big, because the population of these iconic whales has been falling precipitously in the past few years due to…
Talking to whales
Is AI really up to speaking whale? “Artificial Intelligence” is is the shiny new toy that synthesizes gargantuan amounts of data and spits out the most likely condensation. For it to work, one needs to start with understanding…