Horses neigh in a unique way that is not seen in other animals.
The distinctive sound produced when horses neigh is made by combining low and high pitch sounds, such as grunting and whistling at the same time.
Martin Gallagher/Getty Images
How horses make sounds has long been a mystery. This sound is quite different from any other sound that exists in the animal kingdom. And now scientists think they’ve discovered why it happens: Horses neigh by producing sounds at two frequencies at the same time – just like singing and whistling in unison.
findings, which were published on monday i current biology, The suggestion is that horses produce sound at two frequencies in two different ways in their larynx or voice box. Vibrations of the vocal cords produce low-frequency sounds of about 200 Hz, just as we do when singing. And whistling within the larynx produces high-frequency sounds of more than 1,000 hertz.
“We now finally know how the two fundamental frequencies that make up a whine are produced by horses,” said Elodie Briefer, an associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Copenhagen and co-author of the paper. statement.
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In general, the larger an animal and its larynx, the lower frequency of sound it produces. Meanwhile smaller creatures, such as rats, make high-frequency whistles. But this study shows that horses are unique in their ability to whistle and vibrate their vocal cords at the same time, the authors write.
“This is going to be a landmark paper in terms of stimulating research into vocalizations in equations,” said Sue McDonnell, an assistant professor of reproduction and behavior at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the research. till new York Times.
The study authors write that the results support the theory that horses may have evolved to communicate multiple messages in a single vocalization.
“In the past, we found that these two frequencies are important to horses, because they convey different messages about the horses’ own emotions,” Briefer said in the same statement. “We now have strong evidence that they are also produced through different mechanisms.”
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