Dolphin Echolation Discovery
- Sep 5, 2016
- 1 min read
In December 2015 a significant CymaScope breakthrough was made in capturing the image of a submerged man from the echolocation beam transmitted by a dolphin. Now, after several months of work, a paper reporting this research has been published in the prestigious Journal of Marine Science titled, "A Phenomenon Discovered While Imaging Dolphin Echolocation Sounds”. The paper represents a significant landmark both for marine biology and the CymaScope instrument.
John Stuart Reid commented, “This important research is a turning point in helping marine biologists understand how dolphins see with sound. The paper describes a previously unknown phenomenon, that dolphin echolocation sounds contain pictorial data and that such data can be rendered visible by means of a CymaScope instrument. The pictorial data is created when the dolphin’s echolocation high frequency sound beam reflects from a submerged object, reflecting quasi-holographic image data back to the dolphin”.
In the 2015 Florida-based experiment, conducted by Jack Kassewitz of www.SpeakDolphin.com, a female dolphin, Amaya, echolocated on Jim McDonough while submerged in a dolphin research pool. The reflected echo from Jim was sensed by hydrophones and the recorded signals sent to the CymaScope laboratory where the landmark discovery was made.
The image of Jim was recovered from the echo signal. The results of the research add further evidence to the belief held by marine biologists that dolphins see with sound and take us an important step closer to understanding the mechanism that underpins the dolphins’ sonic imaging ability.
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