The sense of whale

The examination of cetaceans' sensible functions includes whale, dolphin and toutu dolphins of mammals.

As for human beings and other mammals of land, some senses are born with us. However, for whales, these functions are whether degenerated or almost vanished, or may not work well in water. For example, seeing from the brain structure of toothed whales, they don't have the sense of smell. And although there are nerves serving for smell in the brain structure of Baleen whales, we cannot still judge whether they function or not. It is speculated that those nerves serving for the sense of smell are approximately vanished as the blowhole of whales evolved and shifted into the top of head. Similarly, although whales have taste buds, these organs are whether degenerated or developed rudimentarily.

Some hold that the sense of touch of whale is also not well-developed, but these ideas may be improper. Trainers of captive dolphins and small whales always remark that these animals are sensitive while being touched and stroked. And regardless of being captive whales or free-ranging ones, almost individual whales in all the species will do frequently touch, especially between the adult ones and whale calf, or the subgroup members.Such kind of touch helps to maintain an inward order. Besides, as for most of whales, stroke and touch are the part of courtship ritual. The area of blowhole is extremely sensitive. Once touched, the captive whales responses excitedly.

and the sense of vision developed variously in different kinds of whales. Through making a study on a captive grey whale for a year and studying and photographing the free-ranging as well as humpback whale, it was found that Baleen whale in the closed water apparently tracked objects underwater by their vision, and they can see clearly in both water and air. However, the position of eyes strictly limits the field of whales' sight, so that they may not have stereoscopic vision.

On the other hand, the position of eyes in most dolphins and toutu dolphins indicates that they have forward and upward stereoscopic vision. Dolphins in fresh water always swim sidedly, or swim upside down while feeding., which suggests that the position of their eyes makes them vision forward and upward . Opposite to this, bottlenose dolphins have keen vision in water. And seeing from the ways of its tracking the flying fish in the air, they have good sight in the interface between water and air, though previous dada told that dolphins can see nothing in the air. However, the dolphins can jump to the air from the water, and they can exactly eat the fishes in trainers' hands, which readily certify that the above ideas are erroneous.

Of course, the varieties can be explained by the environments of these species. For example, comparing with the whales living in the clean water, vision may matter more. But for those living in the turbid river, vision almost makes no sense. For instance, dolphins in the Amozon river of South Amarica and China Beiji are limited in their vision, and India susu can not see anything, whose vision has degenerated into slits, except for sensing the direction and intensity of light.

Although the taste and smell of whales have strictly degenerated, their vision in water is still uncertain. However, these are compensated by their well- developed sense of hearing. Although there exists different sound field, most of whales can produce sounds like chorus, and they can also forage food by echolocation. And bigger whales can only produce low frequency.Some notable extensions can not be ignored.

Some complex voices can be communicative, but it should be the subjects of colorful minds rather than solid science to clear out what roles these voices play in the social and culture life of whales.