Sound Basics
The physical phenomenon that travels through the air in waves.
What is sound?
This species is generally unable to hear very high-pitched and very low-pitched sounds.
What are humans?
The animal group that uses songs to attract mates or defend territory.
What are birds?
The process by which animals emit sound waves and listen to the echoes to find prey.
What is echolocation?
This feature of an an owl's ears that helps it pinpoint the source of a sound.
What is asymmetry?
The characteristic of sound waves that allows animals to hear different pitches.
What is frequency?
An animal mentioned in the chapter that cannot hear ultrasonic mouse squeaks.
What is an elephant?
The term for the deep and resonant sounds produced by baby treehoppers.
What are vibrational moos?
This animal that uses echolocation to navigate in darkness.
What are bats?
An insect mentioned in the chapter that communicates by sending vibrations through plants.
What is a treehopper?
The term for very low-pitched sounds that some animals, like elephants, can use to communicate over long distances.
What is infrasound?
These animals have a lower hearing range than expected.
What are subterranean animals?
These animals attract females by making very long, deep hums.
What are midshipman fish?
The accuracy of a bat's sonar, which allows it to pluck a spider from its web.
What is acute?
What is maneuvering?
What are birds?
The type of calls that some moths make for courtship.
What are ultrasonic calls?
The reason some male moths make ultrasonic calls.
What is to mimic the calls of bats?
Besides bats, the group of animals, including dolphins, that use echolocation.
What are odontocetes (toothed whales)?
Porpoises were observed to be able to avoid these in the dark.
What are fishing nets?
The quality of a sound that Dooling's experiments with songbirds examined, revealing birds' ability to discern rapid changes in pitch.
What is temporal fine structure?
These animals are able to hear the lower notes of a túngara frog's call, despite their ears being tuned to high frequencies.
What are bats?
The phenomenon exploited in swordtail fish, where females are attracted to males with longer tails, a trait that evolved to match a pre-existing preference.
What is sensory exploitation?
This is what the bottlenose dolphin had to do while wearing latex suction cups over her eyes/
What is navigate through a maze?
The orange frog from Brazil that is insensitive to the frequencies in its calls.
What is the pumpkin toadlet?