What Are Your Cichlids Saying Behind Your Back?

[robertprice]

Since Barlow's documentation of 16 cichlid recordings in the year 2000, the number of noisy cichlids has now increased to the hundreds. They have rudimentary vocabularies of pops, clicks, whistles, purrs, clicks, squeaks, grunts, groans, barks, hoots, rattles, tinkles, humming and drumming. Although their languages have not yet been well deciphered, most have words for "food, scared, angry, I'm dominant, and i'm a good breeder."

Midas Cichlids and Lake Malawi Cichlids are the most talkative, and the males go on non-stop rants while attracting, dancing, and mating with females. Many species of female cichlids prefer not only the biggest and most colorful males, but the loudest ones as well. If you were to put a giant hydrophone in Lake Malawi, it would sound like a deafening disco. I wont speculate on what the males are singing while they are dancing, as there may be children reading this.

The sounds are produced by the sonic muscle in the swim bladder, or by stridulation of their teeth and jaws.

[robertprice]

After I finally got into bed after the March BAS meeting, I called my Mother to discuss Red Ceibals, Angelfish and Book Sales. The connection was loud, so I asked her to talk quitely because The Lizard was sleeping. As soon as he heard his name He jumped off his little pillow and ran across the bed, up my leg and stopped on my chest to listen. After he determined we were taiking on the telephone, he licked my ear and the telephone and put his left ear against the earpiece and listed to the entire fish conversation for 8 minutes. As soon as I hung up, he walked back to his pillow and went back to sleep.

:thinking: