Abstract
Cetaceans live in an environment that is alien to us. They are adapted to live in a three-dimensional fluid world that has exerted evolutionary pressures vastly different from those we are shaped by as terrestrial beings, yet they share our mammalian heritage. For these reasons, they are profoundly relevant to any comparative analysis of human behavior, particularly aspects in which both they and we represent relative peaks across the mammalian order. Humans are visual creatures; in contrast, cetaceans rely heavily on their acoustic sensory system because a profound reliance on sound in the ocean for everything from communication to navigation is essential given the very limited light that penetrates more than 100 m or so. Sound travels much faster and further in water than air, allowing communication to occur over tens of kilometers and sometimes across an entire ocean basin. Marine niches vary in time and space in quite different ways to those on land.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Pages | 23-34 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781108131797 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781316642825 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 19 Mar 2020 |
