HEARING AND LATERAL LINE | Acoustic Behavior

Fishes hear and produce a variety of sounds that allow them to interpret their environment as well as communicate with their conspecifics. Some sounds are incidental sounds made while swimming and feeding. Other sounds are signals associated with feeding, predator avoidance, territory defense, reproduction, and echolocation. Of these sounds, one of the most pervasive is when males make advertisement sounds to communicate their readiness to spawn, as found especially in the families Sciaenidae, Gadidae, and Batrachoididae. Sounds may provide information to the listener on the behaviors, sex, or size of the fish, allowing scientists to use sound to better understand the fish behavior.