Known predatory reptiles like crocodiles and alligators may have a crooner's side to their deadly form as zoologists from the University of Vienna in Austria said they may actually sing to each other to communicate.
These creatures have the ability to vibrate the air inside their vocal tracts in the same manner as birds. The vibration produces a "frequency of a resonance honestly reflecting their size," the researchers underscored in their study.
The sounds they make may not be as lovely to hear as the birds, but the experts assumed that this "singing" was the reptiles' way of communicating.
To prove their assumptions, the experts conducted their research in the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in Florida and for months, kept track of 23 species of crocodilians.
They were particularly interested in the biggest female alligator. "When the big alligators in one of the other enclosures were bellowing, she always bellowed," said Stephan Reber, the head of the study, according to Mail Online.
"Crocodilians are among the most vocal non-avian reptiles. Adults of both sexes produce loud vocalizations known as bellows year round, with the highest rate during the mating season," Reber said. "Although the specific function of these vocalizations remains unclear, they may advertise the caller's body size, because relative size differences strongly affect courtship and territorial behavior in crocodilians."
The study suggests that dinosaurs may have also done the same thousands of years ago. "If you see it [resonance] in the last two groups [birds and crocodilians] that share a common ancestor with all extinct dinosaurs, we can infer that dinosaurs probably used formants [resonances] too for communication," Reber said.
"Because birds and crocodilians share a common ancestor with all dinosaurs, a better understanding of their vocal production systems may also provide insight into the communication of extinct Archosaurians," the researchers noted.
The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
