Odontocete biosonar signals: Functional anatomy or signal design

Abstract

There are between 67 and 76 species of odontocetes (toothed whales) and presumably all have biosonar capabilites. There are three fundamental biosonar signal types that can be categorized by types of marine mammals that produce these signals. Whales and dolphins that can emit whistle signals (except for sperm whales) project short broadband clicks containing about 5 to 7 cycles with decaying exponential envelope and Q (center frequency over bandwidth) between 2 and 3. Porpoises do not whistle and produce polycyclic narrow band high frequency biosonar signals with approximately 20 or more cycles with a modified sinusoidal amplitude envelope and Q around 14. Biosonar waveforms of beaked whales (also non-whistling animals) typically have 10-15 cycles with a linear FM component and Q around 4. This presentation will discuss the characteristics of the three different biosonar signal types and suggest some motivation factors involved with the use of the different signals. The type of prey and their habitat will also be included in the discussion. It will be shown that in some cases, the signal type is motivated by anatomical constraints of the odontocete and in other cases, the backscatter characteristics of the prey may be the most important factor.