TheBirds sing, dogs bark, turtles… well, it turns out they have a surprisingly broad vocabulary too. A new study has found that these animals, along with dozens of other “dumb” species, speak loudly, leading to the conclusion that all vocal communication dates back to a single ancestor more than 400 million years ago.
Sounds specifically are sounds animals produce with their mouths by sucking air out of their lungs, and use it to communicate a wide range of messages to their species and others. They may sing to attract mates, shout to warn allies about predators, or grumble to scare rivals.
These sounds have been fairly well studied in many groups of animals, including mammals, birds, and frogs, but others are generally thought to be somewhat silent. Or at least that’s what we assumed. A new study looked at some of these animals and found that many of them actually talk.
A team led by the University of Zurich (Switzerland) recorded and monitored the sounds of 53 species thought to be dumb. These include 50 species of turtles, added to the few species known for their vocalization, as well as three other groups of vertebrates, none of whose members are known to vocalize: lung thickness (Ceratodontimorpha), reptiles endemic to New Zealand called tuataras (sphenodonephoto below) and amphibians that look like caecilians called caecilians (Gymnovona).
The researchers recorded the sounds of the tuatara, a New Zealand-native reptile that was previously thought to be silent. (Gabriel Georgić Cohen)
According to Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen, first author of the study:
These results, along with a large data set of literature including 1,800 different species covering the entire spectrum, show that vocal communication is not only widespread among terrestrial vertebrates, but also that there is evidence for vocal abilities in many groups previously considered non-vocal. . .
The team then mapped vocal communication across the vertebrate tree of life, and the results were surprising. Previous studies revealed that vocal communication is relatively little in the tree of life and concluded that this ability has evolved several times in different species. However, the researchers found that this ability only evolved once and that all sounds can be traced back to a single point of origin.
Image taken from the study: The tree contains 1,800 species of Schwain organisms that are credited with the presence or absence of vocal contact. Pie charts in ancestral nodes indicate the probability of each character status. Colors in spectrum charts represent the intensity of sounds, with warm colors representing high intensity and cool colors (eg blue) having low intensity or no sound. (Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen et al./Nature Communications)
According to Marcelo Sanchez, co-author of the study:
We’ve been able to piece together vocal communication as a common trait among these animals, which are at least as old as their last common ancestor who lived roughly 407 million years ago. Our results now show that vocal communication did not evolve multiple times in different groups, but has an ancient and common evolutionary origin.
The study, published in Nature Communications: The co-evolutionary origin of vocal communication in asphyxiating vertebrates Presented on the University of Zurich website: Voice communication originated more than 400 million years ago.
