You may imagine that the ocean is an extremely calm and silent place, but not quite, in some places you can hear a beautiful coral of fish.
Most underwater music usually comes from solo fish, which repeat the same sound over and over again, as is the case with the dongfish:
//socientifica.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/wiping_ambon1.mp3When several different fish sing, they can form a beautiful coral.
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Researcher Robert McCauley and his colleagues at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, recorded vocal fish in the coastal waters of Port Hedland, Western Australia, over an 18-month period and identified seven distinct fish choruses, occurring at dawn and dusk. You can hear three of them here:
//socientifica.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/threechoruses.wavThe foghorn sound is produced by Black Jewfish ( Protonibea diacanthus ) while the grunts that researcher Miles Parsons likened to the "buzzer" of an operating board game come from a species of Terapontidae. The third chorus is a quieter batfish that does something like a "ba-ba-ba."
"I've been hearing fish screams, buzzes and pops for almost 30 years, and they still amaze me with their variety, synchronicity," says McCauley, who led the research.
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Sound plays an important role in the lives of fish. They can use it for breeding, feeding and territorial disputes. Nocturnal predatory fish use sound commands to stay together to hunt, while fish active during the day use sound to defend their territory. "The dusk and dawn choruses are like those of birds in the forest," says Steve Simpson, biologistof the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.
The aim of the research is to monitor fish and their ecosystems in waters that have low visibility, such as Port Hedland.
The scientific paper was published in the journal Taylor & Fancis.
SOURCE / NewScientist
