• Question: why do different animals make different noises? Like a dog would woof but a cat will meow?

    Asked by rowaan to MarkF, Mark, Michael, Panos, Sarah on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Panos Soultanas

      Panos Soultanas answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hello rowaan,

      it is to do with the different anatomy of their vocal chords in most cases or whether they have vocal chords or not in other cases.

    • Photo: Mark Fogg

      Mark Fogg answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      So they don’t get confused. 😉

    • Photo: Mark Travis

      Mark Travis answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I don’t know this one! probably due to the different make-up of their vocal cords?

    • Photo: Sarah Burl

      Sarah Burl answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Mostly genetic but some of it will be environmental so that the animal knows what each sound their mother makes means. Often we wouldn’t be able to distinguish the different sounds but the actual animal can like a penguine can call his young amongst several hundred penguines and the baby will recognise its mum!

    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      well they make noises to communicate…but the actual noises they make would be based upon the shape of their voice box and breathing chamber…like in Jurrassic park 3 when they build a vleciraptor breathing chamber…that limits the noise that can be made..

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