--- title: Echolocation in the sea and in people: dolphins, whales, swiftlets and clicking humans — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Echolocation in the sea and in people: dolphins, whales, swiftlets and clicking humans», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Bats are not the only animals that find their way with echoes; dolphins, many whale --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Echolocation in the sea and in people:… # Echolocation in the sea and in people: dolphins, whales, swiftlets and clicking humans Lesson 230 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 14 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/0/) — Bats are not the only animals that find their way with echoes; dolphins, many whales, some cave birds, shrews and even some blind people do it too. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/1/) — Under the sea light fades fast, but sound travels well and quickly, so an echo is often the best way to «see» there. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/2/) — A dolphin in murky water clicks, the clicks bounce off a fish, and the echoes come back through its lower jaw to its ears. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/3/) — Think of the sonar screen on a fishing boat on TV: the boat sends a ping and times the echo, a trick dolphins had for millions of years before us. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/5/) — A dolphin's echoes can tell whether an object is hollow or solid, so it can find a hidden ring in water too cloudy to see through. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/6/) — Sperm whales hunt squid more than a kilometre down in total darkness with clicks that are among the loudest sounds any animal makes. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/7/) — Sonar sends a ping and times the echo; sound travels about four times faster in water than in air. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/9/) — Some cave swiftlets of Asia and the oilbird of South America click to find their way in pitch-black caves, with clicks low enough for people to hear. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/10/) — Some shrews and tenrecs use simple echoes from squeaks to explore tunnels and thick grass. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/11/) — A beluga whale can change the shape of its melon to aim its clicks, and it uses echoes to find breathing holes in Arctic ice. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/12/) — Loud noise from ships and underwater building can drown out whale and dolphin calls; after 11 September 2001, when few ships sailed for a few days, scientists found right whales were calmer and less stressed. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/13/) — Fish do not talk, but many make sounds by drumming muscles on their swim bladder, grinding teeth or rubbing bones, and a coral reef at night is noisy with the crackle of snapping shrimps and the grunts of fish. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/14/) — Toothed whales like dolphins, orcas and sperm whales echolocate; baleen whales like the blue whale and humpback do not seem to, because they gulp huge mouthfuls of tiny krill instead of chasing single fast prey. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/15/) — Some people say dolphins can tell if a woman is going to have a baby by echoes; dolphin clicks do pass a little way into a body, but this has not been properly proven. - ← previous: [Echolocation: how bats see with sound](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/229-echolocation-how-bats-see-with-sound/) - next →: [Electric senses: electric eels, sharks, the platypus bill and charged bees](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)