The Voices of Nature

How and Why Animals Communicate

Nicolas Mathevon

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780691239989
  9780691236759
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691236766
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Zoology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Songs, barks, roars, hoots, squeals, and growls: exploring the mysteries of how animals communicate by sound

What is the meaning of a bird's song, a baboon's bark, an owl's hoot, or a dolphin's clicks? In The Voices of Nature, Nicolas Mathevon explores the mysteries of animal sound. Putting readers in the middle of animal soundscapes that range from the steamy heat of the Amazon jungle to the icy terrain of the Arctic, Mathevon reveals the amazing variety of animal vocalizations. He describes how animals use sound to express emotion, to choose a mate, to trick others, to mark their territory, to call for help, and much more. What may seem like random chirps, squawks, and cries are actually signals that, like our human words, allow animals to carry on conversations with others.

Mathevon explains how the science of bioacoustics works to decipher the ways animals make and hear sounds, what information is encoded in these sound signals, and what this information is used for in daily life. Drawing on these findings as well as observations in the wild, Mathevon describes, among many other things, how animals communicate with their offspring, how they exchange information despite ambient noise, how sound travels underwater, how birds and mammals learn to vocalize, and even how animals express emotion though sound. Finally, Mathevon asks if these vocalizations, complex and expressive as they are, amount to language.

For readers who have wondered about the meaning behind a robin's song or cicadas' relentless "tchik-tchik-tchik," this book offers a listening guide for the endlessly varied concert of nature.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Foreword by Bernie Krause
• Note to the reader
• 1. Animal chatters: Tinbergen’s four questions
• 2. Making circles in water: A short vade mecum of physical acoustics
• 3. The warbler’s eyebrows: Why do birds sing?
• 4. Cocktails between birds: Noise and communication theory
• 5. Family dinner: Parent-offspring communication
• 6. Submarine ears: Underwater bioacoustics
• 7. The tango of the elephant seals: Vocal signals and conflict ritualization
• 8. The caiman’s tears: Acoustic communication in crocodiles
• 9. Hear, at all costs: Mechanisms of audition
• 10. Tell me what you look like: Production of sound signals
• 11. Networking addiction: Acoustic communication networks
• 12. Learning to talk: Vocal learning in birds and mammals
• 13. Inaudible speech: Ultrasounds, infrasounds, and vibrations
• 14. The laughing hyena: Communications and complex social systems
• 15. Ancestral fears: The acoustic expression of emotions
• 16. The booby’s foot: Acoustic communications and sex roles
• 17. Listening to the living: Ecoacoustics and biodiversity
• 18. Words … words: Do animals have a language?
• Acknowledgments
• Glossary
• Notes
• Index