In mammals, lactation can be the most energetically expensive part of the reproductive cycle. Thus, when energy needs are compromised due to predation risk, environmental disturbance, or resource scarcity, future reproductive success can be impacted. In marine and terrestrial environments, foraging behavior is inextricably linked to predation risk. But quantification of foraging energetics for ...

5

Many blind people rely on echoes from self-produced sounds to assess their environment. It has been shown that human subjects can use echolocation for directional localization and orientation in a room, but echo-acoustic distance perception--e.g. to determine one's position in a room--has received little scientific attention, and systematic studies on the influence of additional early reflectio...

The mammalian thyroid gland maintains basal metabolism in tissues for optimal function. Determining thyroid volume is important in assessing growth and involution. Volume estimation is also important in stereological studies. Direct measurements of colloid volume and nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio of the follicular cells may provide important information about thyroid gland function such as hormo...

Cetacean sighting data collected under various programmes in Colombian Pacific waters were collated with the goal of assessing the distribution and abundance patterns of all species occurring in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Distribution maps are presented for 19 species and one genus based on 603 sightings collected between 1986 and 2008. Ordered by sighting frequency, these species were:...

Dolphins have high propulsion and maneuvering performances. Dolphin’s tail flukes play an important role to generate propulsive force. We paid attention to a dolphin that lost most part of its tail flukes by disease kept in an aquarium, Okinawa, Japan. The dolphin could swim by attaching artificial tail flukes as well as a normal dolphin. The objective of this study is to discuss the effectiven...

We show that dolphin whistle types tend to be used in specific behavioral contexts, which is consistent with the hypothesis that dolphin whistle have some sort of “meaning”. Besides, in some cases, it can be shown that the behavioral context in which a whistle tends to occur or not occur is shared by different individuals, which is consistent with the hypothesis that dolphins are communicating ...

Mobile phone based potable water quality assessment device is developed to analyze and study water pollution level at Indus river. Indus river is habitat of endangered Indus river dolphin and water pollution is one of major causes of survivability threats for this specie. We tested device performance at the six locations of Lahore canal. pH of canal water deviates from the normal range of the i...

The odontocete sound production system is highly complex and produces intense, directional signals that are thought to be focused by the melon and the air sacs. Because odontocete echolocation signals are variable and the emitted click frequency greatly affects the echolocation beam shape, investigations of beam focusing must account for frequency-related beam changes. In this study we tested w...