Seeing with Sound

Ocean unicorns, a.k.a. narwhals, use sound to navigate in a similar way to bats and dolphins.  A recent study found that narwhals are able to create very detailed pictures with their sonar; a necessity in their dark ocean environment.

A narwhal has to come to the surface to breathe every four to six minutes.  But in their icy and dark environment in Arctic conditions, finding an opening to surface could be a difficult challenge.

Narwhals are perfectly suited to find those tiny breathing cracks in the ice because of their echolocation.

Narwhals create an acoustic “picture” by sending out clicks of sound that bounce of objects around them.  Their pictures are extremely precise, and a narwhal has the ability to narrow or widen its beam of sound like a flashlight.

Read more about the narwhal at: Narwhals, Tusked Whales of the Arctic, See With Sound.  Really Well.