Animal song

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An animal song is a repetitive vocal utterance of animals such as birds and whales. The term is not clearly defined in the scientific literature, though most investigators agree that an animal song must have syllabic diversity and temporal regularity akin to the repetitive and transformative patterns which define human music.

Motifs and different categories of sound syllables set animal song apart from repetitive animal vocalizations.

In some cases such as birds and cetaceans, the songs are learned from adults. Other mammals besides whales, such as canines and rodents are being studied for evidence of learned animal song.

See also

• Animal communication
• Animal language
• Animal vocalizations
• Bird song
• Vocal learning
• Whale song

External links

• Listen to Nature 400 examples of animal songs and calls
• Washington U. Mice Songs
• Cornell Animal Sound Library
• The British Library Sound Archive has more than 150,000 recordings of 10,000 species
• Canadian Centre for Wolf Research
• International Bioacoustics Council many links to animal sound sites