40 Fun Facts About Animal Sounds

Which Australian bird marks its territory at dawn and dusk with a call like loud human laughter?

Kookaburra laughter has been edited into Hollywood jungle scenes since the Tarzan films of the 1930s, although the bird is native to eastern Australia.

Which African carnivore has a giggling laugh whose pitch reveals the age of the animal making it?

Spotted hyena whoops are just as informative: each animal's whoop carries its own signature, so clan members may tell one another apart by sound alone.

Which large cat does not roar and instead chirps like a bird to find lost cubs or greet a companion?

Cheetah chirps can be heard a mile away, and they vary so much between individuals that the cats may recognise each other by them.

Which marine mammal's males sing complex songs that a best-selling 1970 album made famous?

Humpback whale males in the same area sing much the same song, and when one alters it the others copy the change.

Which familiar sound do adult domestic cats rarely make to each other, saving it mostly for people?

Meow calls aimed at humans are probably a kitten's mew carried into adult life, a habit that developed after domestication.

Which Australian songbird has been recorded mimicking chainsaws, car alarms and camera shutters?

Lyrebird mimicry of other birds is so accurate that even the species being copied can fail to tell the imitation from the real song.

Which land animals keep in touch over long distances with rumbles too low for humans to hear?

Elephants make infrasonic calls below 20 hertz, and African herds may stay in contact this way across as much as 10 km.

Which marine mammals each develop a signature whistle that others use to identify the individual?

Dolphins learn the whistle rather than inheriting it, and a calf's version borrows from several whistles instead of copying a single one.

Dolbear's law uses the calling rate of which insects to estimate the air temperature?

Crickets chirp faster as the air warms, a link physicist Amos Dolbear set out in 1897 in a paper that treated the insect as a thermometer.

Which birds claim territory with rapid drum rolls on trees, a signal that does the job of a song?

Woodpeckers each drum to a pattern unique to the species, set by the number of beats, the length of the roll and the gap between rolls.

Which big cat's family groups keep in contact with night-time roars that carry about 8 km?

Lion prides often split into smaller groups that stay in touch by roaring, and both males and females also roar to mark their territory.

Which bird is named for the male's two-note spring call?

Cuckoo first appears in English in a 13th-century song welcoming summer; cuckoo clocks copy the male's two notes with small bellows and pipes.

Which pet rodent gives a loud 'wheek' whistle when it hears a fridge door open or a food bag rustle?

Guinea pig owners hear it so often because the animals learn which household noises mean food is on the way.

Which word names a donkey's loud hee-haw call, which can carry for more than three kilometres?

Braying typically lasts about twenty seconds, and it may help wild donkeys keep in contact across the wide spaces of the desert.

Which call do male wild turkeys give in early spring, audible up to a mile away?

Gobble calls are aimed at both females and rival males, and they explain why an adult male turkey is known as a gobbler.

Which word did zoologist Donald Griffin coin for how bats navigate by their own calls bouncing back?

Echolocation was first demonstrated in bats by Griffin and Robert Galambos, while the version used by toothed whales was not properly described until 1956.

Which insects sing at up to 120 decibels by rapidly buckling drum-like organs called tymbals?

Cicadas are so loud that calling males disable their own eardrums to avoid damaging their hearing.

Which Latin American primate's call, one of the loudest of any land animal, carries about three miles?

Howler monkey males draw air through a cavity in an enlarged hyoid bone in the throat, a bone that is larger in males than in females.

Which balloon-like pouch of skin do most male frogs inflate to amplify their mating calls?

Vocal sac membranes resonate with the vibrations of the larynx, so the call carries further and draws females from a wider area.

Films often dub which bird's fierce scream over footage of the weaker-voiced bald eagle?

Red-tailed hawk screams became the stock raptor cry because the eagle's real call is a weak, chirping whistle that sounds a little like a gull.

Which farmyard animal's call is written 'kikeriki' in German and 'cocorico' in French?

Rooster crows sound the same everywhere but are spelled to suit each language; English settles on the much longer cock-a-doodle-doo.

Which African river animal's most common call is a 'wheeze honk' that carries far through the air?

Hippopotamus groups react more strongly to the wheeze honks of strangers than to those of neighbours they already know.

Which marsupial did early explorers first encounter by hearing its far-reaching screeches at night?

Tasmanian devil calls so unnerved the explorers that an early name for the animal was Beelzebub's pup, after a prince of hell.

Which African animals, once thought by biologists to be mute, appear to hum to each other at night?

Giraffes also snort, moan, grunt and make flute-like sounds, though early biologists believed they could not move enough air to make a sound.

Which deep-diving toothed giant makes clicks of up to 236 decibels, the loudest sound of any animal?

Sperm whale clicks are made by forcing air through a pair of so-called phonic lips at the front of the nose, just below the blowhole.

A rattlesnake's rattle is a chain of hollow segments, one added at each shed, made of which material?

Keratin, the same protein found in fingernails, forms each hollow link, and the links knock together when special shaker muscles vibrate the tail.

Which 'barkless' dog breed makes a yodel-like sound instead, owing to an unusually shaped larynx?

Basenji dogs are hunters from Central Africa, where one local name refers to their habit of jumping straight up to spot their quarry.

Which wild North American canine's scientific name, Canis latrans, means 'barking dog'?

Coyote yips, howls and barks have led naturalists to describe it as the most vocal of all wild North American mammals.

Which small crustacean stuns prey by snapping an oversized claw, a noise that can disrupt sonar?

Pistol shrimp can swap weapons: if the big claw is lost, the small one grows into a new snapper while a small claw regrows in its place.

Which Arctic animal is nicknamed the sea canary for its high-pitched squeaks, clucks and whistles?

Beluga calls are shaped by the melon, the bulging organ on the forehead, which visibly changes shape as the animal makes sounds.

Which Australian marsupial's males bellow using an extra set of vocal folds in the soft palate?

Koala bellows make a male sound bigger than he is, and females pay more attention to the calls of larger males.

Which North American bird's soft, drawn-out notes, a male's mating call, are often mistaken for an owl?

Mourning dove calls have a rougher side too: up close, a grating, throat-rattling sound can be heard just before the first coo.

Which organ at the base of a bird's windpipe lets some songbirds make two sounds at once?

Syrinx muscles on the left and right branches can work independently, whereas a bird's larynx, unlike a mammal's, makes no sound at all.

Which term means making sound by rubbing body parts together, as grasshoppers do with leg and wing?

Stridulation is not limited to insects: the Goliath tarantula rubs bristles on its legs, and one bird, the club-winged manakin, has a dedicated apparatus for it.

The storybook 'tu-whit tu-whoo' is really a duet between the female and male of which European bird?

Tawny owl females give the shrill kew-wick contact call and the male answers with a quavering hoot, so the famous phrase is two birds, not one.

Which North American amphibian makes the 'ribbit' call so often heard in films?

Pacific tree frog males use it as an advertisement call, a sound that listeners also write down as crek-ek.

Which New Zealand bird's males dig bowls in the ground and boom for hours a night to attract mates?

Kakapo booms can carry 5 km on the wind, and the dug-out bowls act as amplifiers, often placed beside rocks or banks that reflect the sound.

Which African primate gives acoustically distinct alarm calls for leopards, eagles and pythons?

Vervet monkey calls differ for each of the four confirmed predators, and the species is thought to have up to 30 alarm calls in all.

Which small Puerto Rican frog is named for the loud two-note call the males make at night?

Common coquí males aim the first note at rival males and the second at females, and each sex's hearing responds best to a different note.

Which songbird duetted with cellist Beatrice Harrison in one of the BBC's earliest outside broadcasts?

Nightingale song from her garden in Oxted went out in May 1924, and gramophone records of the duet followed a few years later.