Sharks may not be the sharp-toothed silent type after all.
The clicking of flattened teeth, discovered by accident, could be “the first documented case of deliberate sound production in sharks,” evolutionary biologist Carolin Nieder, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and colleagues propose March 26 in Royal Society Open Science.
Humankind has been slow in picking up on sound communication among fishes, and many of their squeaks and rumbles have come to the attention of science in captive animals. For the many bony fishes, it’s no longer a surprise to detect various chirps, hums or growls. Yet the evolutionary sister-branch, sharks and rays, built with cartilage, have been