July 22 , 2016

Most birds vocalize with an open beak, but vocalization with a closed beak into an inflating cavity occurs in territorial or courtship displays in disparate species throughout birds. Closed-mouth vocalizations generate resonance conditions that favor low-frequency sounds. By contrast, open-mouth vocalizations cover a wider frequency range. Here we describe closed-mouth vocalizations of birds from functional and morphological perspectives and assess the distribution of closed-mouth vocalizations in birds and related outgroups. Ancestral-state optimizations of body size and vocal behavior indicate that closed-mouth vocalizations are unlikely to be ancestral in birds and have evolved independently at least 16 times within Aves, predominantly in large-bodied lineages. Closed-mouth vocalizations are rare in the small-bodied passerines. In light of these results and body size trends in non-avian dinosaurs, we suggest that the capacity for closed-mouth vocalization was present in at least some extinct non-avian dinosaurs. As in birds, this behavior may have been limited to sexually selected vocal displays, and hence would have co-occurred with open-mouthed vocalizations.

Tobias Riede, Chad Eliason, Edward H. Miller, Franz Goller and Julia Clarke (2016)
Coos, booms, and hoots: the evolution of closed-mouth vocal behavior in birds.
Evolution (advance online publication)
DOI: 10.1111/evo.12988