These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Mechanisms of vocal production in budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus).
    Author: Brittan-Powell EF, Dooling RJ, Larsen ON, Heaton JT.
    Journal: J Acoust Soc Am; 1997 Jan; 101(1):578-89. PubMed ID: 9000746.
    Abstract:
    Songbirds vocalizing in helium show a change in the spectral quality of their vocalizations. This effect is due to an increase in the speed of sound in helium that in turn alters the resonance properties of the vocal tract. Here, this approach is extended to a psittacine, the budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus), whose syringeal anatomy and innervation differ from that of a songbird. Contact calls from birds vocalizing in heliox (70/30 helium/oxygen environment) showed an overall increase in the amount of energy at frequencies above the fundamental, slight changes in the frequency of the fundamental and harmonics, and some change in the level of harmonics. Calls produced by a syringeally denervated bird showed more dramatic changes. Recordings from live birds were compared with sounds produced by various simple "artificial" tracheal and syringeal models. Results suggest that budgerigars produce contact calls using the syringeal membranes as a unitary sound source which produces acoustic energy in a narrow frequency band whose fundamental frequency is matched to the resonant frequency of the trachea. The syrinx is not normally coupled to the tracheal resonator, and resonances probably play only a minor role in shaping the spectrum of contact calls.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]