Detailed analysis of two detected overlaying transient components within the echolocation beam of a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)

J Acoust Soc Am. 2019 Apr;145(4):2138. doi: 10.1121/1.5096640.

Abstract

Dolphin echolocation clicks measured far off-axis contain two time-separated components. Whether these components overlap and appear as a single signal on axis has received little attention. Here, the scaled reassigned spectrogram analysis was used to examine if bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) clicks measured near- or on-axis of the echolocation beam contained overlapping components. Across click trains, the number of overlapping components spatially varied within the echolocation beam. Two overlapping components were found to predominantly occur in the upper portion of the beam, whereas the lower portion of the beam predominantly contained a single component. When components overlapped, the trailing component generally had a higher center frequency and arrived less than 5 μs after the leading component. The spatial relationship of components was consistent with previous findings of two vertically distinct beam lobes with separated frequency content. The two components in the upper portion of the beam possibly result from a single transient click propagating through a geometrically dispersive media; specifically, the slower sound speed of the dolphin melon's core slightly delays the more directional, high frequency energy of the click, whereas the less directional, lower frequency energy propagates through more peripheral but higher sound speed portions of the melon.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustics
  • Animals
  • Bottle-Nosed Dolphin / physiology*
  • Echolocation*
  • Sound