Look up Payne RS in a search of scientific literature and you'll come up with one much more noteworthy and venerable than myself. In the beginning of the 70s, Roger S. Payne published beautiful work on the songs of Humpback Whales and Accoustic Location of Prey by Barn Owls.
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Science 13 August 1971: |
1 Rockefeller University, New York. New York;
New York Zoological Society.
2 Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.
1) Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) produce a series of beautiful and varied sounds for a period of 7 to 30 minutes and then repeat the same series with considerable precision. We call such a performance "singing" and each repeated series of sounds a "song."
2) All prolonged sound patterns (recorded so far) of this species are in song form, and each individual adheres to its own song type.
3) There seem to be several song types around which whales construct their songs, but individual variations are pronounced (there is only a very rough species-specific song pattern).
4) Songs are repeated without any obvious pause between them; thus song sessions may continue for several hours.
5) The sequence of themes in successive songs by the same individual is the same. Although the number of phrases per theme varies, no theme is ever completely omitted in our sample.
6) Loud sounds in the ocean, for example dynamite blasts, do not seem to affect the whale's songs.
7) The sex of the performer of any of the songs we have studied is unknown.
8) The function of the songs is unknown.
Journal of Experimental Biology 54,535-573 (1971)
Published by Company of Biologists 1971
Acoustic Location of Prey by Barn Owls (Tyto Alba)
1 Rockefeller University and New York Zoological
Society
1. Barn owls (Tyto alba) can locate prey in total darkness using only the sense of hearing, with an error of less than I° in both the vertical and horizontal planes.
2. Differences between the behaviour of barn owls flying at prey in complete darkness (analysed from films taken under infra-red illumination) and their behaviour in the light are correlated with the problems they must face in acoustic orientation.
3. Experiments with owls trained to strike a concealed loudspeaker show that they depend on frequencies of sound above 5 kHz.
4. Measurements of sound pressure in the region of the owl's eardrum, made with a probe-tube microphone while moving a loudspeaker around the owl's head, reveal that for frequencies above 8-5 kHz the ear is highly directional. At such frequencies, regions of high sensitivity (tightly isolated by peripheral regions of low sensitivity) are directed along different paths for the two ears.
5. These regions of good sensitivity are correlated with the asymmetry of the barn owl's external ears. Movements of a flap of skin in front of the ear opening changes the overall directional sensitivity patterns by redirecting the regions of maximum sensitivity.
6. A theory is presented to explain how a barn owl might locate the position of a sound source by moving its head until the intensity of all frequencies comprising a complex sound is brought to a maximum in both ears (aided perhaps by differences in inter-aural time delay that are enhanced by intensity disparities).
Submitted on January 20, 1970