5 Basic Senses
This part of your eye controls how much light enters, just like a camera lens.
What is the pupil?
Echolocation helps animals find their way and locate food by using this type of wave.
What are sound waves?
This term describes sounds that are too high for humans to hear.
What is ultrasound (or ultrasonic sound)?
This term describes sounds that are too low for humans to hear.
What is infrasound (or infrasonic sound)?
Magnetoreception is this ability.
What is the ability to sense the Earth's magnetic field and find their way when traveling long distances?
Sound waves travel through this part of your ear and make it vibrate so you can hear.
What is the eardrum?
When a bat sends out a sound and it bounces back, that returning sound is called this.
What is an echo?
This describes how fast a sound wave vibrates and helps decide whether a sound is low, like a drum, or high, like ultrasound.
What is frequency?
Unlike toothed whales, these whales do not use ultrasound but communicate by singing long, low-frequency songs.
What are baleen whales?
Salmon use magnetoreception to help them return to this place where they were born to lay eggs.
What is their spawning river or birthplace?
Smells are detected by special cells high inside your nose that send messages to this part of your body.
What is the brain?
Echolocation is especially helpful for dolphins because sound travels better than light in this environment.
What is water (or the ocean)?
This allows whales’ ultrasound waves to travel faster and farther than in air because molecules are packed closer together.
What is water (or the ocean)?
These land animals use infrasound to communicate with other members of their herd far away.
What are elephants?
Sea turtles use magnetoreception to travel thousands of kilometers to return to this type of place.
What is the beach where they hatched?
Your sense of taste works together with this other sense to help you fully enjoy your food.
What is the sense of smell?
Dolphins send out clicking sounds from this part of their head to help them “see” underwater.
What is the melon?
Only these whales use ultrasound to echolocate and find prey underwater.
What are toothed whales (like dolphins, orcas, and sperm whales)?
Infrasound can travel farther than normal sounds because these waves have this property.
What is a low frequency (or long wavelength)?
Scientists think that animals like salmon and sea turtles can sense the Earth’s magnetic field to create this inside their brains.
What is a magnetic map (or internal compass)?
This part of your body has the most touch sensors, making it extra sensitive to feel.
What are your fingertips?
This helps bats figure out how far away an object is when they send out a sound and listen for it to return.
What is listening for how long the sound takes to come back?
This allows doctors and scientists to look inside living things or underwater objects without needing surgery.
What is using ultrasound imaging?
Elephants can use infrasound to detect this before it happens, helping them stay safe.
What are storms (or approaching thunderstorms)?
Both salmon and sea turtles return to the place they were born to reproduce, completing this repeating pattern of stages from birth to adulthood.
What is their life cycle?