Fish recorded singing dawn chorus on reefs just like birds [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

LIFE 21 September 2016
By Greta Keenan



at fish ballad
Norbert Probst/Getty

The ocean might seem like a quiet place, but listen carefully and you might just hear the sounds of the fish choir.

Most of this underwater music comes from soloist fish, repeating the same calls over and over. But when the calls of different fish overlap, they form a chorus.

Robert McCauley and colleagues at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, recorded vocal fish in the coastal waters off Port Hedland in Western Australia over an 18-month period, and identified seven distinct fish choruses, happening at dawn and at dusk. You can listen to three of them here:

( - click for audio - )

https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/19155206/threechoruses.wav?_=1

The low “foghorn” call is made by the Black Jewfish (Protonibea diacanthus) while the grunting call that researcher Miles Parsons compares to the “buzzer in the Operation board game” comes from a species of Terapontid. The third chorus is a quieter batfish that makes a “ba-ba-ba” call.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2106331-fish-recorded-singing-dawn-chorus-on-reefs-just-like-birds/#ixzz5wLEWuTpO