Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Animals Keep Creating Mysteries by Sounding Weird

These two lynx are having some sort of spat. It could be territorial, or maybe a lover's quarrel, but if you heard that coming from your back yard in the night, you'd get very little sleep. It's just one example of the ways animals surprise us when we hear the strange sounds coming from them. The most famous example is the "sonic attack" on American diplomats in Cuba a couple of years ago, which scientists now believe was the call of the the Indies short-tailed cricket. Ed Yong goes through more examples, like puffins that sound like chainsaws, humming fish, and tortoises having loud sex. Read about totally weird animal noises, with video evidence, at the Atlantic. (via Metafilter)

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