Sound travels through the ocean carrying clues about potential prey, predators and other animals, giving sharks an important way to detect what they cannot yet see.
Sound travels through the ocean carrying clues about potential prey, predators and other animals, giving sharks an important way to detect what they cannot yet see. But exactly how far a free-swimming shark can hear a sound – and whether it can determine where that sound is coming from – has remained largely unknown.
Now, a new Florida Atlantic University study of blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) is helping close that gap. Using an underwater speaker, an aerial drone and free-swimming sharks, researchers found that sharks can detect sounds from considerable distances and respond by dramatically changing direction away from the source – even when the sound source is nearly 250 feet away.
Results of the study, published in the journal Integrative Organismal Biology, provide the first quantified evidence that free-swimming sharks can detect and orient away from sound in the acoustic far field, offering new insight into one of the most fundamental yet least understood senses in these ancient marine predators.
Read more at: Florida Atlantic University
Photo Credit: Franziska_Stier via Pixabay
