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Hearing and acoustic orientation in marine animals
Griffin, D.R. (1955). Hearing and acoustic orientation in marine animals, in: Papers in Marine Biology and Oceanography. Dedicated to Henry Bryant Bigelow, By His Former Students and Associates on the occasion of The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 1955. Deep-Sea Research (1953), 3(Supplement): pp. 406-417
In: (1955). Papers in Marine Biology and Oceanography. Dedicated to Henry Bryant Bigelow, By His Former Students and Associates on the occasion of The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 1955. Deep-Sea Research (1953), 3(Supplement). Pergamon Press: London & New York. 498 pp., more
In: Deep-Sea Research (1953). Pergamon: Oxford; New York. ISSN 0146-6291; e-ISSN 1878-2485, more
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Keyword
    Marine/Coastal

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  • Griffin, D.R.

Abstract
    The evidence that underwater sound is important in the behaviour of fishes and cetaceans is reviewed, with emphasis on the possible occurrence of acoustic orientation. Both these groups of marine animals have now been shown to have excellent hearing. At least one fish has a minimum auditory threshold of the same order of magnitude as the typical human threshold at 2000-4000 c.p.s. (about 10-16 watt/cm² energy flux). Porpoises can hear sounds of moderate intensity at frequencies well above 100 kc. A series of recordings which may have resulted from a deep sea fish engaged in echo-sounding are analyzed and discussed, and the possible role of echolocation in marine animals is compared with the available evidence of its nature and occurrence in bats and other animals relying on airbourne sound. In this connection the possible usefulness of continuous sounds and standing wave patterns is discussed with reference to the observed fact that a low frequency sound in a small tank undergoes marked fluctuations in intensity over distances that are a small fraction of its wave-length in water.

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