Echolocation a navigation tool of animals

Another possible animal is the hedgehog have developed the ability to echolocate. Like other toothed whales, pilot whales use echolocation to find their way

Echolocation is a technique used by bats, whales, dolphins and other animals to determine the location of objects using reflected sound. This allows the animals to move around in pitch darkness, so they can navigate, hunt, identify friends and enemies, and avoid obstacles.

Bats, whales, dolphins, a few birds like the nocturnal oil bird are all known to echo locate. Another possible animal is the hedgehog have developed the ability to echo locate. Like other toothed whales, pilot whales use echolocation to find their way

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How did this evolve

For dolphins and toothed whales, this technique enables them to see in muddy waters or dark ocean depths, and may even have evolved so that they can chase squid and other deep-diving species.

Echolocation allows bats to fly at night as well as in dark caves. This is a skill they probably developed so they could locate night-flying insects that birds can’t find.

Echolocation is the same as active sonar, using sounds made by the animal itself. Ranging is done by measuring the time delay between the animal’s own sound emission and any echoes that return from the environment.

Dolphins, whales use echolocation

Dolphins and whales use echolocation by bouncing high-pitched clicking sounds off underwater objects, similar to shouting and listening for echoes. The sounds are made by squeezing air through nasal passages near the blowhole. These sound waves then pass into the forehead, where a big blob of fat called the melon focuses them into a beam.

If the echolocating call hits something, the reflected sound is picked up through the animal’s lower jaw and passed to its ears. Echolocating sounds are so loud that the ears of dolphins and whales are shielded to protect them. Dolphins and whales use this method to work out an object’s distance, direction, speed, density and size.

Using echolocation, dolphins can detect an object the size of a golfball about the length of a football pitch away – much further than they can see. By moving its head to aim the sound beam at different parts of a fish, a dolphin can also differentiate between species.

Other animals who use echolocation

Bats make echolocating sounds in their larynxes and emit them through their mouths. Fortunately, most are too high-pitched for humans to hear – some bats can scream at up to 140 decibels, as loud as a jet engine 30m away.

The oilbird is active at night, and some insect-eating swiftlets roost in dark caves, so it makes sense for them to have evolved the ability to echolocate. Both use sharp, audible clicks to navigate through the darkness.

Some nocturnal shrews use ultrasonic squeaks to explore their dark surroundings, and the shrew-like tenrecs of Madagascar echolocate at night using tongue clicks, possibly to find food.

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