Sharks are some of the most feared creatures in the ocean and for good reason. They have sharp teeth and can be incredibly fast. But do sharks make noise or sound?
Believe it or not, sharks don’t have any organs specifically for producing sound. This means that they can’t vocalize as other animals do. However, this doesn’t mean that sharks can’t communicate with each other.
Sharks use a variety of methods to communicate with one another, including body language and electrical signals.
Do Sharks Make Noise or Sound?
Sharks are often considered to be one of the most silent predators in the ocean. This is because they lack any organs specifically meant for producing sound.
They can also sense the vibrations created by other animals, which allows them to communicate even when they can’t see or hear each other.
While they may not make much noise themselves, that doesn’t mean that they can’t hear what’s going on around them.
Sharks have an excellent sense of hearing and can detect prey from long distances. They are also able to pick up on the sounds made by other marine creatures, which can help them locate their next meal.
Researchers used acoustic monitoring devices to record the sounds of seven different shark species swimming around in a tank at the Florida Aquarium. They found that sharks do produce sound, but it’s barely audible to the human ear.
Sharks are anatomically unable to produce vocalizations, they don’t seem to have any vocal cords. Cartilaginous fish, including sharks, are incapable of producing sounds because they do not have larynxes.
Larynxes are cartilaginous structures in tetrapods that house the vocal cords and are responsible for sound production.
Instead, shark noises are produced by vibrations of their skin and muscles. These vibrations can create low humming noise, but they are not considered vocalizations.
Are Sharks Even Bothered by a Noisy Environment?
Sharks are one of the most feared creatures on Earth and for good reason. These apex predators can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh more than 1,000 pounds.
But what many people don’t know is that sharks are actually quite sensitive animals.
A new study has found that sharks are bothered by noise pollution in the ocean, and this could have serious implications for their survival.
To conduct the study, researchers found that the sharks in the noisy environment swam faster and changed their swimming patterns more often than those in the quiet environment.
The researchers believe that this is an attempt by the sharks to avoid the noise.
This study is important because it shows that noise pollution can have a serious impact on shark populations.
What Do Sharks Sound Like?
The lemon shark, Negaprion brevirostris (Poey), is a coastal and estuarine elasmobranch found in the western Atlantic Ocean.
These sharks are opportunistic feeders that use a variety of sensory modalities to locate and capture prey. One such mode of predation is sound.
A study has shown that lemon sharks can detect prey by their acoustic signals. In one study, lemon sharks were found to increase their swimming speed when they heard the sound of prey being fed upon in an aquarium tank.
Another study showed that lemon sharks could differentiate between the sounds made by different prey species.
Given this information, it is likely that young lemon sharks use sound to locate and capture prey items in their natural environment.
How Can You Listen to a Shark?
Signals and Noise in the Elasmobranch Electrosensory System
Elasmobranchs, the subclass of cartilaginous fishes that includes sharks and rays, have long been known to use their electrosensory systems extensively for prey detection, mate recognition, and navigation.
However, it is now becoming clear that these animals also use their electrosensory systems for mate recognition and possibly for navigation.
Studies on both nurse sharks (Ginglymostoma cirratum) and lemon sharks (Negaprion brevirostris) have shown that males produce specific electrical signals that females respond to in order to identify potential mates.
It is still not clear how elasmobranchs use their electrosensory systems for navigation, but there is evidence that they can detect the weak electric fields produced by other animals.
References
- Bodznick D., Montgomery J. C. (1992). Suppression of ventilatory reafference in the elasmobranch electrosensory system: medullary neuron receptive fields support a common mode rejection mechanism. J. Exp. Biol 171, 127.
- Bodznick D., Montgomery J. C., Bradley D. J. (1992). Suppression of common mode signals within the electrosensory system of the little skate Raja erinacea. J. Exp. Biol 171, 107.
- Kalmijn A. J. (1982). Electric and magnetic field detection in elasmobranch fishes. Science 218, 916–.
- Kalmijn A. J. (1997). Electric and near-field acoustic detection, a comparative study. Acta Physiol. Scand 638, 161–.
- Montgomery J. C. (1984). Frequency response characteristics of primary and secondary neurons in the electrosensory system of the thornback ray. Comp. Biochem. Physiol 79, 189.
- Nelson M. E., Paulin M. G. (1995). Neural simulations of adaptive reafference suppression in the elasmobranch electrosensory system. J. Comp. Physiol 177, 723.
- Paulin M. G. (1995). Electroreception and the compass sense of sharks. J. Theor. Biol 174, 325.
- Tricas T. C., Scott W. M., Sisneros J. A. (1995). Electrosensory optimization to conspecific phasic signals for mating. Neurosci. Lett 202, 129.
