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Re: estimating direction and distance of gibbon calls

Subject: Re: estimating direction and distance of gibbon calls
From: "umashankar" umashanks
Date: Sat Dec 20, 2008 7:24 am ((PST))
i do not know what=A0bernie was thinking of, but i do know that in many spe=
cies, broadband sound sensibility such as=A0ours does not exist. the male m=
osquito's hearing is tuned to the wingbeat frequency of a female. he does n=
ot=A0hear anything else. i suspect bats too, when they are using their hear=
ing for echolocation, need to be able to turn off almost everything else.

think of colocated birds of different species using different parts of the =
sound spectrum. are they tuning out frequencies that do not belong to their=
 species. what then happens to alarm calls, which are shared across species=
?

unlike the eye, much of the processing involved in hearing takes place clos=
e to the ear, probably because nerves carry signals too slowly and phase in=
formation would be lost before it gets to the brain.

even if another species heard exactly the same frequencies that we do, what=
 use their brains make of it would be quite different.
=A0i have published my poems. you can read (or buy) at http://stores.lulu.c=
om/umashankar




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