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Fish can listen in on the calls of dolphins to avoid getting eaten , a new study propose .
" belike a lot of Pisces can do this , " said lead story investigator Luke Remage - Healey , a behavioral neuro - endocrinologist at University of California , Los Angeles .
Toadfish can eavesdrop on the calls of dolphins to avoid getting eaten.
A bottom - harp fish find off the coast of Florida called the gulf toadfish [ range ] is premier prey fordolphins , which often listen to toadfish call option to get their target . In fact , 80 percent of bottlenose dolphin diet containing sound - produce fish . But whether the toadfish peels its “ ears ” toward dolphins has remained a mystery story .
Remage - Healey first suspect that gulf Opsanus tau could heed in on hungry dolphin ' calls two years ago while recording the coupling call of the male toadfish off the Gulf coast of Florida .
" Then , they all stopped ring , " Remage - Healey think . " My field assistant mark dolphins [ image ] foraging right over the toadfish site , and we see we were recording dolphin sound instead . "
The researcher catch toadfish and placed each in its own coop and catch one’s breath the cages on the seabed in the facts of life speckle . From underwater speakers , they played recordings of snapping prawn sounds or dolphin sounds — both high-pitched absolute frequency " whistles " thatdolphinsuse to communicate with each other , and low frequency " tonic " likely used to place a stone pit . The shrimp sounds mimicked a coarse screen background noise in the bay .
resultant role prove that the Opsanus tau ignored the snapping prawn sounds and mahimahi whistle and continued on with their coupling call . But when the fish heard dolphin soda pop or combination of pops and whistle , they drastically subjugate their career rates .
Prior inquiry unveil toadfish try dispirited relative frequency sounds well , ordered with the drastic response to the recordings of lowly frequency pops .
As verification , mensuration of toadfish blood taken immediately after the dolphin auditory sensation were play reveal that level of the stress hormonecortisolshot up after they pick up pops .
Remage - Healey , Douglas Nowacek of Florida State University and Andrew Bass of Cornell University in New York report their finding in the Nov. 15 subject of theJournal of Experimental Biology .
