3.3K views · 21 reactions | Decompression sickness (DCS), or "the...

Did you know pilot whales can suffer from decompression sickness, just like human divers? These deep-diving cetaceans typically avoid surfacing too quickly, but naval sonar activity has been linked to disrupted dive patterns that may cause gas bubble lesions in their tissues, a condition strikingly similar to "the bends" in humans. Their melons, the fatty structures on their foreheads, are not just for show, they help focus echolocation clicks into directional beams, a critical adaptation for hu