When I read last December that Shell had gotten a court's approval to commence seismic exploration for oil off the coast of South Africa, my first thought went to whale ears. Specifically, the wax that builds up in them.
Like humans, cetaceans — whales, dolphins, porpoises — produce ear wax, and in certain species, this wax, or cerumen, builds up over their lifetime. But unlike human ear wax, which can hinder our hearing by blocking airborne sound waves traveling in our ear canal, cetacean cerumen has almost the same density as the fluid — water — in which the whale swims. And while scientists still don't know exactly how whale hearing works for all species, the wax doesn't impede their ability to navigate their aural environment.
