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June 1, 2007 Clownfish Communicate By Rapping--Their Teeth
No, clownfish don’t communicate by honking bulbous noses. But they do communicate, according to Eric Parmentier of the University of Liege in Belgium. Parmentier and his colleagues used high-speed video and X rays to catch clownfish in the act of making the chirps and pops they use to warn off rivals or lure mates—which sounds like the creaking of an old door-hinge. Listen. (Clownfish sound plays.)
The clownfish, like many of their piscine brethren, use the sounds creatively but make them in a unique way, according to Prementier’s paper in Science. Whereas most other fish use swim bladders or rub their bones together to vocalize, and herring like to suck in air through the esophagus and—seriously—blow it out the anus rapidly, clownfish prefer to raise their heads, shuffle the bones in their mouths and close their jaws. Slamming teeth together produces the noise that is then radiated by the jaws of all 27 varieties of the species. It’s not exactly the tears of a clown…fish, more like the teeth-grinding of a clownfish as a pickup line. But it’s still music to their mates.
