Singing for Sex: Even Toadfish Do It

July 17, 2008 -- It's not exactly Tony serenading Maria in "West Side Story," but for all their homeliness toadfish also sing to attract mates.

OK, singing may be a stretch; it's more of a hum. But it turns out to be useful, for science as well as the fish. Exploring how their nervous system produces sounds is allowing scientists to trace the earliest developments of vocalization in other animals, including people.

Many animals communicate vocally -- birds chirp, frogs thrum, whales whistle -- and comparing the nerve networks in a variety of vertebrates suggests that making sounds originated in ancient fishes, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The sounds of whales and dolphins are well known, but most people don't realize fish also make sounds, lead researcher Andrew H. Bass of Cornell University said in a telephone interview. He's a professor of neurobiology and behavior.

"I'm not saying fish have a language or are using higher powers of the brain," he added quickly. "But some of the networks of neurons, nerve cells in the brain, are very ancient."

The whole nervous system basis that led to speech originated in fish hundreds of millions of years ago, he said.

He studied the hindbrain in the larvae of midshipmanfish and toadfish, which grow up to produce more than one type of sound.