Biology 3436F/G Study Guide - Final Guide: Cinclosomatidae, Lyrebird, Spectrogram
12 Apr 2015
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Document Summary
Calls: simple, innate, males and females, contact/alarm (or other basic life strategies, i. e. begging) All birds can call, but not all birds can sing. Acoustics are measured by a spectrogram, used to visualize acoustics. Frequency is on the y- axis, and time duration is on the x-axis. Bandwidth is measured within this, which is the pitch range. This can also give us an indication of intensity (amplitude = volume), rate (songs/min) and tempo (speed). There are only a few species that have to learn to acoustically communicate. This includes humans (we know innately for visual expressions, but speaking to each other needs to be learned). A few other groups are whales, dolphins, bats, mice, and more importantly songbirds (e. g. zebra finches, passerines, canaries). The songbirds have the hvc, the ra, and much more complex structure for learning and being able to produce songs. A non-songbird does not have these specialized structures in the brain to learn how to sing.
