A singing Archaeopteryx

During the 19th century most discussions of the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, focused on its relationship to other fossil reptiles, whether or not it could fly, and what it indicated about the origins of flight. A bird would not be a bird without song, though, and at least two authors attempted to imagine what sounds the early bird might have made had it tried to sing. The first was Eden Phillpotts in the fictional book Fancy Free. In one particular chapter an Archdeacon describes a fantastic Mesozoic safari (with a tomcat named Peter by his side), describing that and as he relaxed by the side of a felled Triceratops he heard a very strange noise;

Then followed perhaps my most remarkable experience. I was resting awhile after lunch,finishing the whisky and smoking a cigar, while the black cat coursed about of his free
will, when suddenly the weirdest sound that ever fell on mortal ear saluted mine. I never heard anything distantly approaching it before ; I know not how to describe it. The sound was something between the hiss of a serpent and the coo of a dove. The primeval beast responsible for it evidently combined the vocal qualities of bird and reptile. Naturally I marvelled, for birds were still strangers to the world. And yet an element of music in the sound led me to suspect that a creature at least of semi-ornithological nature was making it. "

'Peter, ' I said, for he was very excited at the noise, ' we must be in the presence of an Archaeopteryx! No other Jurassic concern could make that unutterable burlesque of melody.' And I was right. A moment later I came across an Archaeopteryx sitting on a fallen tree stump and singing, or, at least, under the impression that he was doing so. I stood and listened to the first dawnings of bird music ; I, who knew what the lark, and the thrush, and the nightingale could produce at their best, gave ear to that cock Archaeopteryx warbling according to his limited lights. It was pathetic to see how he enjoyed it himself, and how his hen enjoyed it. He was the very first thing of his kind that Nature had managed ; naturally he could conceive of nothing finer than his primitive self and preposterous voice. He gurgled and hissed, and squeaked, and even tried to trill. Then Peter, who recognised in him a true bird, despite the fact that he had claws on his wings and teeth in his mouth, captured that unfortunate Archaeopteryx after a tough struggle, and dragged him to me in some joy. "

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The Bird Its Form and Function By William Beebe


Fancy, indeed. Yet in this case art preceded a bit of scientific speculation. In his general-audience book The Bird: Its Form and Function the ornithologist William Beebe also considered what Archaeopteryx must have sounded like if it tried to sing;

Our fancy may add an archaic attempt at song -- a lizard's croak touched with the first harmony, which was to echo through all the ages to follow; we may also imagine, if we will, leathery eggs deposited in a rotten knot-hole of a Jurassic conifer.

Whether or not Archaeopteryx made an such attempt cannot be known. I do not see any reason to doubt that Archaeopteryx was capable of making noises, although whether we would consider such vocalizations song (if we could hear them!) would probably depend on our definition of it. Speculation aside, passages such as those quoted above are informative in that they reveal the conception of Archaeopteryx as a "good bird." Even if it could not fly very well, it must have been at least somewhat birdlike in its habits; it was the earliest known bird, after all. Such was the supposition, anyway.

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At what point in theropod evolution did recognizable singing appear? Would non-avian theropods be able to sing? Maybe there was a Tyrannosaurid Roy Orbison.

jck; I have no idea. I don't even know how we could even start to figure it out, at least without a time machine. I'm sure that at least some dinosaurs communicated with sound, but for the origin of "bird song" we'd probably want to look at the origin of song birds about 50 million years ago. The best way I can think of to approach it would be to look at what birds sing and determine if they have common ancestry and at what point that common group evolved (and what birds of other groups also independently developed singing and what birds within the songbird group might have secondarily lost the ability to sing). Basically I have no answers, although it is amusing to think of little Archaeopteryx, gurgling and hissing in an attempt to retain territory/impress the opposite sex.

To put it another way, would an Epidexipteryx by any other name still sing as sweetly?

Archaeopteryx had a bird-like inner ear according to Alonso et al. (2004). Of course, that doesn't mean that Archaeopteryx sang, but the authors seem to hint at that possibility. It would be interesting to see someone do a more detailed analysis of vocal display and inner ear/brain anatomy to see if the relationship could be tightened up at all.

It's also interesting to consider if the development of powered flight itself is conducive to developing the brain-regions which allow you to process complex audio and spatial information. This in turn may have lead to the development of echolocation in bats, and complex vocalization (as well as the ability to precisely pinpoint the location of a singing rival or prospective mate) in birds.

Oscines ("song-birds") certainly don't have a monopoly on complex vocalizations, although they have taken it to the extreme. The fact that Tinamous have melodious and complex vocalizations suggests either A) birds have a tendency to develop this skill or B)"signing" predates the paleognath/neognath split.

On the other hand it seems more likely that large terrestrial theropods communicated with low-frequency "booming" ala ratites or crocodilians (Gleich et al. 2005)