All God's Creatures etc. etc.
January 24, 2025 5:25 PM Subscribe
Are there examples of animals that sing together in harmony, or in rhythmic coordination? Not like a flock of crows all cawing 'together' in pandemonium, but like with timed entrances and coordinated pitch?
Thanks to a 2AM concert a few nights ago, I have learned that pairs of Puerto Rican Owls sing in harmony, with one laying down a baseline and the other adding accents approximately a major third higher.
I'm familiar with birds doing the "let's all yell" thing, and I guess lots of animals do a kind of call-and-response, but are there other examples of non-human animals harmonizing? Or coordinating their songs in rhythm, or even unison?
Thanks to a 2AM concert a few nights ago, I have learned that pairs of Puerto Rican Owls sing in harmony, with one laying down a baseline and the other adding accents approximately a major third higher.
I'm familiar with birds doing the "let's all yell" thing, and I guess lots of animals do a kind of call-and-response, but are there other examples of non-human animals harmonizing? Or coordinating their songs in rhythm, or even unison?
Crows absolutely do rhythmic calling with each other! It seems you'll need to listen more crows and more carefully to hear it, but if you do, you'll be rewarded with a very rich and complex communication system.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:08 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:08 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
I like to go swimming in my local river at night. Sometimes I end up going just before dawn. One of the best things about floating silently in the swimming hole as dawn begins to break is that that's when the birds who populate the surrounding bushland begin to wake up and greet the day. And human composition is weak sauce compared to what that orchestra comes up with spontaneously.
As humans it's easy to fall into Make Apes Great Again bigotry, bigging ourselves up by inventing complicated theories of music and harmony and summarily rejecting anything we can't shoehorn into one of those. Honestly, though, anybody who thinks of the likes of Neil Peart or Danny Carey as masters of polyrhythm would get a lot from a "pandemonium" of crows or cockatoos, or a night frog and cricket chorus, just by putting aside all such preconceptions and listening as attentively as to any human performance they'd paid to be at.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been alerted to this many decades ago by finding myself dancing to the dawn chorus at Tidal River. Tourist numbers have massively swelled since then and that particular chorus is correspondingly more subdued, but if you find places where not a lot of people regularly go, and enter them quietly and respectfully, you will find that the world is filled with more music than the likes of Spotify will ever be able to record, let alone monetize.
Absolutely not speaking metaphorically here.
posted by flabdablet at 6:11 PM on January 24 [16 favorites]
As humans it's easy to fall into Make Apes Great Again bigotry, bigging ourselves up by inventing complicated theories of music and harmony and summarily rejecting anything we can't shoehorn into one of those. Honestly, though, anybody who thinks of the likes of Neil Peart or Danny Carey as masters of polyrhythm would get a lot from a "pandemonium" of crows or cockatoos, or a night frog and cricket chorus, just by putting aside all such preconceptions and listening as attentively as to any human performance they'd paid to be at.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been alerted to this many decades ago by finding myself dancing to the dawn chorus at Tidal River. Tourist numbers have massively swelled since then and that particular chorus is correspondingly more subdued, but if you find places where not a lot of people regularly go, and enter them quietly and respectfully, you will find that the world is filled with more music than the likes of Spotify will ever be able to record, let alone monetize.
Absolutely not speaking metaphorically here.
posted by flabdablet at 6:11 PM on January 24 [16 favorites]
This is the best question!
Humpback whales sing in coordinated ways, in a kind of "choir," and pass their songs on over generations and across great distances.
posted by ojocaliente at 6:36 PM on January 24 [5 favorites]
Humpback whales sing in coordinated ways, in a kind of "choir," and pass their songs on over generations and across great distances.
posted by ojocaliente at 6:36 PM on January 24 [5 favorites]
I knew crickets snychromize so I went looking for a link that said so and in doing so i kearned that crickets also harmonize.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:12 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:12 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
They do, and it doesn't take a mass of expensive equipment to find that out, nor to join in. In my experience, that particular choir is quite welcoming to new members, and the membership fee is just a little humility.
posted by flabdablet at 7:25 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 7:25 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
In the Amsterdam zoo, I heard the southern ground hornbills do a call and response thing that made me initially wonder whether I was hearing a human band practising (repeated low notes: POM-POM-POM... each time followed by higher notes: PAAA-PAAA...). More on southern ground hornbill calls here.
posted by rjs at 12:18 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
posted by rjs at 12:18 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
I've been at the Washington National Zoo around sunset and heard their troop of gibbons: a "soloist" will start it, and be joined/responded to by a "chorus".
I didn't mention this before because in the only gibbon video I could find, it seems more like conversation than song, per se. But finer coloratura sopranos you never did hear.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:58 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
I didn't mention this before because in the only gibbon video I could find, it seems more like conversation than song, per se. But finer coloratura sopranos you never did hear.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:58 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
Raucous toads croak together in interlocking croak patterns that resonate with one another in such a way that their combined voices are much louder than if they just croak randomly together.
Seriously, it sounds like a truck without a silencer, it's like a roaring sound. My father refused to believe it was toads making that sound!
I believe cicadas do a similar thing, pitching their cries in such a way that the combined sibilance is even louder.
posted by Zumbador at 5:43 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
Seriously, it sounds like a truck without a silencer, it's like a roaring sound. My father refused to believe it was toads making that sound!
I believe cicadas do a similar thing, pitching their cries in such a way that the combined sibilance is even louder.
posted by Zumbador at 5:43 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
Oh and my budgies (parakeets) will get into a groove with their singing in a group, headbanging and swaying while cheaping, clicking, whistling, twittering, repeating little riffs and rhythms exactly in the way improvising musicians do, with the patterns fitting into one another. And when I got a new one, it had a different set of riffs and patterns.
posted by Zumbador at 5:48 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
posted by Zumbador at 5:48 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
Zumbador, zumbador, play us their songs...
posted by amtho at 8:19 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
posted by amtho at 8:19 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
Bioacoustics is a peer-reviewed journal (found through tiny frying pan's link). Here are their open access articles.
posted by amtho at 8:26 AM on January 25 [2 favorites]
posted by amtho at 8:26 AM on January 25 [2 favorites]
This fascinating page, Songs of Insects, has a lot of good information about the songs of insects: How they are made, what they are used for, the varieties of song and sound made by various species.
Regarding coordination or singing together ("choruses" as they are usually called), some highlights:
* In some species, the calling song may serve to attract males to a group chorus whose combined sounds attract females to the area (this occurs among many cicadas). Alternatively, the mating song may function to keep males optimally dispersed within singing colonies (this occurs among many meadow katydids, coneheads, and cicadas).
* A number of species tend to form singing aggregations, in which males group together within appropriate habitat. Various cicadas exhibit this behavior. For example, it has been shown that male Linnaeus’ 17-year Cicadas are attracted to one another’s calls and hence form dense choruses.
* Within colonies, calling often has contagious elements. For instance, the first male to begin singing in a group often elicits singing in other males. This is particularly noticeable among certain bush katydids. In the Broad-winged Bush Katydid, individual males give their song sequence intermittently, with several minutes of silence in between. In this species, there is a marked tendency for males in a colony to sound off in a loosely coordinated sequence. When one male begins singing, another follows, then another, and so forth.
* Singing insects may also synchronize their songs. For instance, in the Common Meadow Katydid, the song is composed of a series of ticks followed by a buzz. Individuals in dense colonies often synchronize their songs so that they are all ticking together and then buzzing together. Likewise, neighboring male Snowy Tree Crickets often sing in unison, and it is not uncommon to find a number of males chirping together in almost perfect synchrony. Synchrony also occurs in Nebraska and Slightly Musical Coneheads. In the Columbian Trig, males in colonies call together but synchronize imperfectly, to create a unique throbbing sound.
* A complicated example of alternation and synchrony occurs in the Common True Katydid. Neighboring males tend to alternate their calls. But when a large number of katydids are close enough to react to one another, the result is a combination of alternation and synchrony in which each male is alternating with the neighbor he hears most clearly, but is at the same time synchronized with other males who are alternating with the same neighbor. The result is a huge pulsing soundscape that is rather amazing to behold.
The page has audio examples of all of the above behavior (most near the bottom of the page) - will worth listening to.
As a rule, these types of insects are not going to harmonize with each other, except at a unison (or, as noted above, slightly off from a unison).
The reason is that the pitch of the insect sounds is determined by the temperature. In fact, the pitch or frequency of the sound can be used as a rather accurate thermometer. Example: Counting the number of Snowy Tree Cricket chirps given in 13 seconds and then adding 40 gives a close approximation to the actual temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.
The changing pitch & frequency does not throw the other insect of the same species off, because their mechanism for detecting the sound is influenced by temperature in the same way as producing it. So as long as producer & receiver are at close to the same temperature, all goes well.
posted by flug at 11:26 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
Regarding coordination or singing together ("choruses" as they are usually called), some highlights:
* In some species, the calling song may serve to attract males to a group chorus whose combined sounds attract females to the area (this occurs among many cicadas). Alternatively, the mating song may function to keep males optimally dispersed within singing colonies (this occurs among many meadow katydids, coneheads, and cicadas).
* A number of species tend to form singing aggregations, in which males group together within appropriate habitat. Various cicadas exhibit this behavior. For example, it has been shown that male Linnaeus’ 17-year Cicadas are attracted to one another’s calls and hence form dense choruses.
* Within colonies, calling often has contagious elements. For instance, the first male to begin singing in a group often elicits singing in other males. This is particularly noticeable among certain bush katydids. In the Broad-winged Bush Katydid, individual males give their song sequence intermittently, with several minutes of silence in between. In this species, there is a marked tendency for males in a colony to sound off in a loosely coordinated sequence. When one male begins singing, another follows, then another, and so forth.
* Singing insects may also synchronize their songs. For instance, in the Common Meadow Katydid, the song is composed of a series of ticks followed by a buzz. Individuals in dense colonies often synchronize their songs so that they are all ticking together and then buzzing together. Likewise, neighboring male Snowy Tree Crickets often sing in unison, and it is not uncommon to find a number of males chirping together in almost perfect synchrony. Synchrony also occurs in Nebraska and Slightly Musical Coneheads. In the Columbian Trig, males in colonies call together but synchronize imperfectly, to create a unique throbbing sound.
* A complicated example of alternation and synchrony occurs in the Common True Katydid. Neighboring males tend to alternate their calls. But when a large number of katydids are close enough to react to one another, the result is a combination of alternation and synchrony in which each male is alternating with the neighbor he hears most clearly, but is at the same time synchronized with other males who are alternating with the same neighbor. The result is a huge pulsing soundscape that is rather amazing to behold.
The page has audio examples of all of the above behavior (most near the bottom of the page) - will worth listening to.
As a rule, these types of insects are not going to harmonize with each other, except at a unison (or, as noted above, slightly off from a unison).
The reason is that the pitch of the insect sounds is determined by the temperature. In fact, the pitch or frequency of the sound can be used as a rather accurate thermometer. Example: Counting the number of Snowy Tree Cricket chirps given in 13 seconds and then adding 40 gives a close approximation to the actual temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.
The changing pitch & frequency does not throw the other insect of the same species off, because their mechanism for detecting the sound is influenced by temperature in the same way as producing it. So as long as producer & receiver are at close to the same temperature, all goes well.
posted by flug at 11:26 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
As noted above, male cicadas chorus their sounds together. This is an important part of their mating system, and the synchronized choruses are audible from longer distances, the better to attract females to the male singers.
Here is an interesting research article on this phenomenon: Self‐organizing cicada choruses respond to the local sound and light environment, Ecology & Evolution April 2020. Quick summary:
* During the emergence, the 17‐year periodical cicada species Magicicada cassini is found to form synchronized choruses, and we investigated their chorusing behavior from the standpoint of spatial synchrony.
* Cicada choruses were observed to form in trees, calling regularly every five seconds. In order to determine the limits of this self‐organizing behavior, we set out to quantify the spatial synchronization between cicada call choruses in different trees, and how and why this varies in space and time.
* Results demonstrate how the capacity to self‐organize in ecology depends sensitively on environmental conditions. Spatially correlated modulation of cycling rate by an external driver can also promote self‐organization of phase synchrony.
posted by flug at 11:29 AM on January 25
Here is an interesting research article on this phenomenon: Self‐organizing cicada choruses respond to the local sound and light environment, Ecology & Evolution April 2020. Quick summary:
* During the emergence, the 17‐year periodical cicada species Magicicada cassini is found to form synchronized choruses, and we investigated their chorusing behavior from the standpoint of spatial synchrony.
* Cicada choruses were observed to form in trees, calling regularly every five seconds. In order to determine the limits of this self‐organizing behavior, we set out to quantify the spatial synchronization between cicada call choruses in different trees, and how and why this varies in space and time.
* Results demonstrate how the capacity to self‐organize in ecology depends sensitively on environmental conditions. Spatially correlated modulation of cycling rate by an external driver can also promote self‐organization of phase synchrony.
posted by flug at 11:29 AM on January 25
Many birds duet! Look up antiphonal duetting for some cool wrens. Many owl species also duet.
posted by oomny at 1:21 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
posted by oomny at 1:21 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
I just came across this press release from a Dutch university about individual rhythm in communicative displays from chimpanzees - and can confirm from having seen such a display in the ~wild (national park in Uganda with free-ranging but human-habituated troops) that it is AWESOME
(The language about chimps “having a limited sense of rhythm” is pretty silly to me, for the same reasons others give above about human chauvinism - maybe OUR rhythms and harmonies are incomprehensible to whales or cicadas.)
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 12:57 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
(The language about chimps “having a limited sense of rhythm” is pretty silly to me, for the same reasons others give above about human chauvinism - maybe OUR rhythms and harmonies are incomprehensible to whales or cicadas.)
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 12:57 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you everyone for the thoughts and links! I have a great evening of reading ahead of me.
Just now I managed to record the owls singing together again. It's not a great recording because the microphone was more interested in frog song, but you can hear them chattering away in the background. Youtube link: https://youtube.com/shorts/5TPJkcTqJ48
posted by eraserbones at 4:36 PM on January 28 [1 favorite]
Just now I managed to record the owls singing together again. It's not a great recording because the microphone was more interested in frog song, but you can hear them chattering away in the background. Youtube link: https://youtube.com/shorts/5TPJkcTqJ48
posted by eraserbones at 4:36 PM on January 28 [1 favorite]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by Pallas Athena at 5:53 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]