Cornell University specialists in the U.S. have discovered that fish communicate using sounds much more frequently than previously thought.
“We have long known that some fish are capable of producing sounds, but this was seen as a rarity. In our study, we wanted to determine whether these cases are isolated or if there is indeed a broader pattern of acoustic communication among fish,” said lead author Aaron Rice from the Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the university.
It was previously believed that fish primarily use other means of communication, such as color and electrical signals or specific movements. However, the study found that out of 175 families of fish, two-thirds communicate using sounds.
Neurobiologist Andrew Bass suggested that fish have long been overlooked in research because the science of underwater acoustic communication has mainly focused on dolphins and whales.
So what do fish talk about? Their “topics of conversation” are not much different from other animals — mainly sex and food. Aaron Rice explained that fish use sounds either to attract the attention of mates or to defend a food source and their territory.
Additionally, the research revealed that fish “speech” emerged approximately 155 million years ago, coinciding with the period when land vertebrates also began to produce sounds.
Rice plans to continue tracking the sounds of various fish species and adding them to his database — a project he started 20 years ago.
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