Echolocation in Bats and Dolphins edited by Jeanette A. Thomas, Cynthia F. Moss and Marianne Vater, University of Chicago Press, 拢31.50/$45, ISBN 0226795993 Reviewed by Rebecca Shapley
THE hardest thing to imagine is a sense we don鈥檛 possess. The editors of Echolocation in Bats and Dolphins have tried to help us out here by assembling a coterie of experts who explore the ways, means and subtleties of how two disparate evolutionary lineages of mammals have adapted sound as a tool to navigate and hunt in three-dimensional space. We humans can shout and tell if a room is empty or full of furniture, but bats can detect insects or obstacles with sub-millimetre precision and dolphins can 鈥渟ee鈥� through flesh to detect the health, bones and heart rates of prey and pod mate alike.
The book鈥檚 enormous scope covers how noises are made and analysed, how young animals learn to process such information and much more. Its style is technical but there is enough introductory material to bring you up to speed on biophysics. Those already familiar with either dolphins or bats will find this book provides both a fine update on recent research and a fabulous peek into a parallel world. For the more general biologist it provides fascinating insights into the similarities and divergences in the evolution of these mammalian masters of air and sea.
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