Topic
The study of animal sound production and behavior, including recording and analyzing calls, songs, and other vocalizations across species.
Joao Menezes and Jeff Podos of UMass Amherst report in Evolution that body size and especially beak width track call volume across 123 bird species. Their tests of mating behaviour, habitat density and flight ability found no general reason why extreme loudness evolved.
Reality
University of Southern Denmark researchers found male tokay geckos inhale for about 0.1 seconds between call notes, then add pulses to lengthen the call. The study of seven captive males explains how a call already known to grow longer in noise does so within a limit set by breathing.
Reality
UMass Amherst biologists measured calls from 123 bird species in the field and found the loudest, above 120 decibels, come from big birds with wide beaks. Their tests of flight ability, forest habitat and mating system as reasons for loudness found no clear pattern.
Reality
Earth Species Project and Elephant Voices researchers used machine learning on 902 Amboseli recordings and found rumbles converging within choruses. The matching showed up in particular social situations, a hint that the calls track what a family is doing.
Reality
Researchers including ElephantVoices' Mickey Pardo used machine learning on hundreds of Amboseli rumble recordings to predict elephant behavior above chance. Rumbles made in similar situations seem to share acoustic properties, a measurable start on cataloguing elephant calls.
Reality
Sea squirts in Ruhr University Bochum tests did not react comparably to sound pressure over 130 decibels while seabed vibration stayed below threshold. Noise checks that measure only pressure may miss what seafloor animals sense, though the study recorded behavior and did not measure harm.
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A Tel Aviv University team gave one classical acoustic method and two deep neural networks a set of toddler recordings whose meanings adult listeners could confirm. All three grouped the clips by sound.
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Colobus congoensis is only the fifth new African monkey species described in 75 years. Locals have seen it a handful of times since 2008, which makes its status the harder question.
Reality