The whale ear has specific adaptations to the marine environment. In humans, the middle ear works as an impedance matcher between the outside air’s low impedance and the cochlear fluid’s high impedance. In aquatic mammals such as whales, however, there is no great difference between the outer and inner environments. Instead of sound passing through the outer ear to the middle ear, whales receive sound through the throat, from which it passes through a low-impedance fat-filled cavity to the inner ear.
Whale 1 October 2011 at 18:36[Online]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale#Ears[Accessed 4/10/11]
From reading this small bit of text from the wikipedia website i have now got a better understanding of how whales pick up sound when underwater.
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