Scientists in Denmark discovered that bats use “death metal growls” to communicate after studying how the Daubenton’s bat uses its larynx to make sounds.
They found that the animals vocalize using the same techniques as the likes of CANNIBAL CORPSE frontman George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher.
“We identified for the first time what physical structures within the larynx oscillate to make their different vocalisations,” explains Professor Coen Elemans. “For example, bats can make low frequency calls, using their so called ‘false vocal folds’ – like human death metal singers do.”
While most humans have a vocal range of approximately three octaves, bats have seven at their disposal.
The paper, titled Bats expand their vocal range by recruiting different laryngeal structures for echolocation and social communication by Jonas Håkansson, Cathrine Mikkelsen, Lasse Jakobsen and Elemans says that in humans, ventricular folds assists with multiple low-frequency types of singing. This includes death metal grunting and Tuvan throat singing where the vibrations coming from the ventricular fold touch the vocal cords which then amplifies the sound.
“Furthermore, we show that bats extend their lower vocal range by recruiting their ventricular folds – as in death metal growls – that vibrate at distinctly lower frequencies of 1 to 5 kHz for producing agonistic social calls,” they continue.
You can read PLOS Biology journal for full report.
