What do a whale and a frog have in common? According to a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, pound for pound, they sound the same. Sounds fishy? I mean, if you’ve ever heard the eerie song of the humpback whale [whale song], you know that it don’t sound like no spring peeper [frog sound].
But scientists at the University of Florida Health Science Center have compared the calls made by 500 different animals, from crickets [sound] to crocodiles [sound], and ostriches [sound] to chimps [sound]. And they find that the basic features of every animal’s cry, such as frequency and duration, depend on the creature’s metabolism. Which, in turn, depends on the animal’s size a
