Africa-Press – Botswana. Vocal communication originated more than 400 million years ago, according to a new study that also shows that animals such as turtles, once believed to be mute, have broad and complex acoustic repertoires.
The research was published in the journal Nature Communications, cited by Lusa, in an article that seeks to unravel the evolutionary roots of this animal “vocalization”.
Analyzes suggest that this is at least as old as the last common ancestor of all terrestrial vertebrates, which lived approximately 407 million years ago.
The use of sounds as a means of communication is common among several groups of vertebrates: the singing of birds, the croaking of frogs or the barking of dogs are some well-known examples and they play a key role in parental care, mate attraction and many others behaviors.
Despite its importance, little is known about when and at what point in the evolutionary history of vertebrates this behavior arose.
To find out, an international research team, led by the University of Zurich, focused on species that had never been analyzed before, the institution said in a statement.
Specifically, the work includes evidence from 53 species from four major groups of terrestrial vertebrates – turtles, tuatara (reptile), caecilians (amphibian) and lungfish – in the form of vocal recordings and contextual information about the behavior that accompanies the production of sounds.
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