Ed Yong on how animal senses reveal the world around us
The TED Interview
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Can We Really Perceive the Bird's Song?
Tree hoppers are standing on the plants theyar, feeling the vibrations move through their bodies. Why can't we perceive the sound waves that are coming after the vibrating leaves? So in part because we don't have the right equipment. A cicades vibrationor song, sounds completely different to the kind of cicadou sounds we can hear. And i think that's another ike fascinating example of the theunvas concertthi here is a case where we absolutely can hear what the animal is saying. But our hearing works at a temporal resolution such that we cannot perceive what the bird itself is sensing in its own song.
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