It is already known that dolphins are some of the most intelligent creatures and now researchers were able to see the world through the eyes of a dolphin.
- Dolphins use echolocation sound system to form images
- Researchers recreated an image of a diver seen by a dolphin
- Dolphin may actually see better than we think
So far, it wasn’t clear how dolphins’ eyes work and how they perceive images or whether they see us or not, but now we have an image of a diver as seen by a dolphin.
The research took place in Mexico at the Dolphin Discovery Center and the subject was a female dolphin called Amaya. A diver submerged into the pool where Amaya was without the breathing apparatus which would have created bubbled that could have distorted the image they were trying to get. Therefore, he simply held his breath.
Dolphins use echolocation to orient themselves. When the female dolphin in the pool directed the echolocation beam towards the diver, the signal was recorded with special audio equipment. The recording was then sent in the U.K. to the CymaScope laboratory where the signal was imprinted into a water membrane. After that, the image was enhanced on the computer to get a clearer view.
As a result we can see that with the help of its echolocation sound sense, a dolphin can see the silhouette of an object and even observe some surface details. What researchers don’t know for sure is whether our technology is advanced enough to read everything a dolphin can see. It may be that they actually get a better image with their echolocation sense, but we are the ones unable to see it.
Another well-known thing about dolphins is that they communicate to each other in a marine mammal language. Given the recent findings, scientists tend to believe that dolphins actually use a more special form of language to communicate with each other and that is sono-pictorial. Therefore, they use echolocation to form images and afterwards send them to one another so they can share their location and what they see.
In conclusion although not very clear the image seen by the dolphin is a huge step forward. Moreover, researchers believe that a more developed technology will actually help us to see a better image through the eyes of the dolphin as they are sure, the visuals the mammals get are a lot clearer and more detailed.
Image source: news.discovery.com
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