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Sound produced | |
Type of sound produced | grunt, followed by one to five tonal boop notes |
Sound production organ | swimmbladder muscle |
Sound mechanism | Starts with a grunt followed by one to five tonal boop notes (typically two or three) and lasts for over a second. |
Behavioural context | The boatwhistle functions as an advertisement call in male-male competition and in attracting females (Ref. 45338). |
Reference | Thorson, R.F. and M.L. Fine, 2002 |
Remark | Its boatwhistle is a single boop note with harmonics that lasts for several hundred ms. The fundamental frequency (= muscle contraction rate of sonic swimbladder muscles) varies with temperature and season, and call duration also varies seasonally but is not directly affected by temperature (Fine 1978). |