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Abstract:
A brief survey of the animal kingdom quickly reveals an impressive array of sensory specializations, each engineered to solve a particular type of adaptive problem. Such a diverse collection of adaptive specializations is especially prevalent in the auditory domain. Acoustic engineers would likely be impressed by the diverse solutions different animals have found to the problems of sound localization, auditory discrimination, and vocal recognition. Echolocating bats, for example, have an auditory system exquisitely tuned for nocturnal prey catching. They are able to use the difference between the sound of an emitted vocalization and its subsequent echo to identify and localize moving targets in a dark environment. Similarly, the auditory systems of many anuran and avian species are specifically tuned for recognizing mating calls and other conspecific vocalizations.
