10/6/2026
Sharks Can Hear Sounds Nearly 250 Feet Away, Study Shows
Drone tracking proves free-swimming blacktips detect low-frequency noise and find its source.
A new Florida Atlantic University study provides the first quantified evidence that free-swimming sharks can detect and respond to underwater sounds from distances extending nearly 250 feet. Using controlled low-frequency sounds and aerial drone tracking, researchers from FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science found that blacktip sharks rapidly changed course when they detected a sound, providing evidence that they can also determine its direction.
The findings, published in the journal Integrative Organismal Biology, reveal that sharks can detect sound well beyond the immediate area surrounding a sound source, challenging assumptions about how these animals perceive their acoustic environment. The study also found that sharks are more sensitive to lower-frequency sounds, offering new insight into the sensory system that helps these ancient marine predators detect and respond to what is happening around them.
“What makes this finding particularly interesting is that the sharks were responding to sounds beyond the acoustic near field, where the sound behaves differently than it does close to the source,” said Stephen Kajiura, Ph.D., senior author and a professor of biological sciences in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. “This suggests that they are detecting the particle motion associated with sound even at considerable distances from the source – something we have not previously been able to demonstrate in free-swimming sharks.”