Toadfish Makes Complex Sounds Like Mammals, Say Researchers

Posted on May 27, 2011

Cornell researchers have discovered that the toadfish can make complex sounds, similar to mammals. This would be the first time nonlinear calls have been observed in a fish species.

**You can hear the toadfish noises here.

Aaron Rice, science director of the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the paper's lead author, says the fish has evolved a unique vocal organ that is "analogous to our larynx and the syrinx of birds."

Rice says, "The dual swim bladders offer the behavioral advantage of allowing toadfish to make enriched sounds that travel farther and increase the likelihood of being heard in a potentially noisy aquatic environment."

You can see the two swim bladders in the abdominal cavity of the fish in the image below.

The research was published online in a May 11 paper in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.