Quiet But Noisy

Sloths use their abilities with ultrasound to stealthily make their way through the forest canopy. Many other animals also use frequencies that are outside of the range of average human hearing.

A lot of animal acoustics are not understood very well by humans, because the humans don’t perceive the sounds and therefore are limited by their own capacities.  New technologies often help open up more information, but since the technologies are invented by humans who are starting with a certain perception set, it will always be an incomplete set of information.

Scientists have listened to whale songs for many years, but they were only listening to the surface part of the song:  the audible melody.  What they didn’t realize was the effect of all of the vibrations in the spectrum of the whale song that were flooding through the water other than what was audible.

Part of the whale’s communication involves vibrations that are not audible, but that can be felt by other sea creatures.  Other whales can feel the vibrations (like when you feel the large bass booming from a stereo system) and pick that up as part of the message.  Sound travels farther in water than in air, so whales can send these tactile communications through sound vibrations much farther.

Many animals “feel” sound as part of their communication beyond what is audible.  Humans also “feel” sound, and can become aware of more subtleties of communication by becoming aware of sound at the tactile vibrational level.  A thoughtful sloth has much to explore!

Read more about the whale research at: Whales Can Really Rock With Their Mellow Songs