Fish hearing and bioacoustics since 1973.

Abstract

In 1973, we wrote a review in J. Acoust. Soc. Am. that summarized our view of fish hearing and bioacoustics. This presentation looks back on the the major questions we had at the time and how the field has dealt with them, or not, to the present. Some of the issues identified included: (1) the roles of the various otolith organs for hearing; (2) lateral line function and its relation to hearing; (3) sound source localization; and (4) how sound stimulation works for fishes without obvious specializations for pressure reception. There have been major advances in these and other aspects of fish sound reception, but in every case, there are significant unanswered questions. For example, it is still controversial whether the utricle plays a role in hearing in most species, and the functional role of the lagena remains an enigma. However, we now have a much better understanding of lateral line stimulation and function, and we now understand that it is not an “accessory auditory organ,” as was widely assumed initially. Many questions of sound localization are now thought to be answered theoretically, and in some cases empirically, but many critical and fundamental experiments on localization remain to be done.