Scientists record well -known shark sounds first

Scientists record well -known shark sounds first

The clicks made by a small type of shark are the first case of a shark that produces an activity

Tamaser (MUSTELUS LENTICULAS).

Thanks to Jaw“The subject of the pulse, sharks are synonymous with a chilling sound. In fact, they swim silently and scratch prey without making a park – so far, that is.

These fish have just broke their silence. A team of researchers recently recorded one type shark that makes short and high frequency clicks when animals are treated underwater. The results of the study, published this week in The royal society is open scienceand It represents the first known occurrence of the shark, which is actively producing.

Marine biologist Caroline Nider, the new study author, has noticed a doctorate. At Auckland University in New Zealand. Her project focused on hearing capabilities for several sharks, including Shark Rig, a small coastal water type around New Zealand. But a strange thing happened when NIEDER treated the scattered sharks between the tests: they will start going out.


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“Initially we had no idea what it was because sharks were not supposed to make any sounds,” says Nidar, who is now at the Woods Hall Oceanic Foundation. “I remember returning home and thinking more and more about how strange these voices are.”

Listen to shark networks:

It is known that more than 1,000 species of fish produce sounds, usually by shaking their swimming bladder, a gas -filled organ that helps animals to stay crowded and can also work as a loudspeaker. But other sharks platforms and fish lack a bladder.

To determine whether the excavators already generate the cracks of the crackling, NIEDER and its colleagues put 10 events, one by one, in the tanks that are equipped with sound recordings. The researchers held each platform for 20 seconds and analyzed the resulting audio recordings.

Each shark produced high -frequency clicks, which only lasted a small part of a second. The researchers recorded much more clicks in the first 10 seconds of the handling session than they did in the past ten seconds, indicating that the sounds represent the excavations response to surprise by their treatments, says Nidar.

Listen to more high -frequency shark clicks:

The frequencies were mostly out of hearing from the excavators, which were complained that sharks used to communicate. They fall within the scope of hearing of many serrated whales hunting platforms. The researchers have Note that observed COD make similar click sounds To profit the potential near seals.

To determine how the excavators made the sound -like sounds without the bladder for swimming, the team created the rebuilding of a three -dimensional tooth for fish and teeth. Rigs contains a distinctive set of flat teeth, which are arranged in overlapping rows to allow animals to break the open crab shell. The team assumes that the mosaic of the teeth of the excavators produces the clicks because the fish pick up their jaws together.

According to Dennis Higgs, a marine biologist at Windsor University in Ontario, the paper provides a convincing condition produced by some sharks. However, it is believed that more work should be done, to determine whether these sounds are part of the audio Rigs or just its response to deal with it. “The open question is,” says Higgs, who studied the auditory capabilities of sharks but did not participate in the new research. “

NIEDER corresponds to and plans to conduct additional behavioral experiments to learn more about what leads to sharks. It also hopes to conduct similar experiments with other sharks platforms and species in natural environments.

Although the new paper provides the first evidence that a shark carried out a sound, recent research has revealed that two other types of cartilage, radiology, and signs are also noise. Scientists have noticed multiple types of Wild rai in both Indonesia and Australia and Radiology and signs in the Mediterranean Sea Make a click noise when contacted by divers.

Shark fish and shapes that appear to be 200 million years have diverged. This represents the possibility that vocal production is an old feature spread among sharks and their cartilage relatives.

“We are used to thinking that these fish could not do that, but they prove that we are wrong,” says Higz. “It is worth listening to more sharks.”

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