Whales can sing, buzz, and even whisper
to one another, but one thing has remained unknown about these gregarious
giants: how they hear. Given the size of some whales and their ocean home,
studying even the basics of these mammals has proved challenging. But two
researchers have now developed a way to determine how baleen whales such as
humpbacks hear their low-frequency (10- to 200-hertz) chatter, and they found
some bone-rattling results.
Baleen whales have a maze of ear bones that
fuse to their skull, leading scientists to suppose the skull helps whales hear.
Under this premise, the researchers used a computerized tomography scanner
meant for rockets to scan the preserved bodies of a minke whale calf
(Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and a fin whale calf (B. physalus), both of
which had stranded themselves along U.S. coasts years before and died during
rescue operations.
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