Fun Facts

Whale Ears & Echolocation 

Photo: Wikipedia

A wonderful gift of a whale’s ear bone made me wonder: how do whales hear and where are their ears are located?

The sleek and smooth whale shows no protruding ear like humans. Whales don't have an ear canal nor the bone attached to the skull and sinuses around each ear. Whale ears are designed specifically to hear sounds under water. Whales rely on their acute sense of hearing to navigate the ocean, find food, keep track of their children, and they communicate to one another with loud, low-pitched moans, whines, or fast high-pitched clicks and whistles (National Geographic).

Known as echolocation, the whale's sonar involves vocalization from the nose, and the reception of the echo in the ear. A sound beams from the “melon” in its bulging forehead into the environment is bounces back providing information that decipher its environment. Their echolocation is so advanced they are able to tell if an object is a form of food, a predator, or an inanimate object (Wikipedia).

Incoming sound waves enter their head straight-on and travels through their acoustic fat-filled jawbone to the bulla, the protective shield around the inner ear. The small marble-sized bulla in a human is about the size of a nerf ball in a whale. In the bulla the sound waves are transferred to vibrations. A whale’s bulla is curved, like a seashell, which is very similar to our outer ear. Whale’s semi-circular canals, which control balance, are smaller than a human, but they are unique and allow acrobatics without getting dizzy (The South Georgia Museum).

So basically the whale’s ear is located at the back of its jaw with a small opening just behind the eye.