False killer whales use acoustic squint to target prey
Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 10:30
in Biology & Nature
Toothed whales and dolphins are remarkable accurate hunters, considering that they locate prey using echolocation alone, so how do they pull this off? Biologists tested the echolocation skills of a false killer whale called Kina and discovered that she focuses her echolocation beam on targets, effectively "squinting" to locate far off objects or objects that are hard to differentiate.