2014/10/29 by Frédéric Bertucci, Laëtitia Ruppé, Sam Van Wassenbergh +2 · 28 citations
Environmental Science · #Fish biology, ecology, and behavior #Ichthyology and Marine Biology #Fish Ecology and Management Studies #Sound production #Sound (geography) #Acoustics #Biology #Physics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1242/jeb.109025
published in Journal of Experimental Biology 217(21), 3862-3869 (The Company of Biologists)
openalex publication_date 2014/10/29 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Grunts are fish that are well known to vocalize, but how they produce their grunting sounds has not been clearly identified. In addition to characterizing acoustic signals and hearing in the French grunt Haemulon flavolineatum, the present study investigates the sound-production mechanism of this species by means of high-speed X-ray videos and scanning electron microscopy of the pharyngeal jaw apparatus. Vocalizations consist of a series of stridulatory sounds: grunts lasting ~47 ms with a mean period of 155 ms and a dominant frequency of ~700 Hz. Auditory capacity was determined to range from 100 to 600 Hz, with greatest sensitivity at 300 Hz (105.0±11.8 dB re. 1 μPa). This suggests that hearing is not tuned exclusively to detect the sounds of conspecifics. High-speed X-ray videos revealed how pharyngeal jaws move during sound production. Traces of erosion on teeth in the fourth ceratobranchial arch suggest that they are also involved in sound production. The similarity of motor patterns of the upper and lower pharyngeal jaws between food processing and sound production indicates that calling is an exaptation of the food-processing mechanism.