Burbot fish sing during spawning, northern biologist says

PeterCottwanted to know the impact of sound on fish in northern lakes but what he found during hisresearch is that one species is actually making sound.

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Cottis now a biologist in Yellowknife, NT, but he did his doctoral thesis atLaurentianUniversity inSudbury. He was working with a colleague who suggested thatburbotfish might "sing"

"He said that becauseburbotare a cod, there's lot of different codfish that actually vocalize as a part of their reproduction."

"So then that got me thinking about checking to see ifburbotmake sounds."

Cott said burbot do have the necessary "equipment" to make noise.

"What they have are these muscles that are attached to their swim bladder, and these muscles in other cod for example, Atlantic cod and haddock they contract really quickly, and can make a sound that way."

Cott said to test the idea, a team submergeda "really big net" under the ice on Great Slave Lake in Yellowknife and recorded the sound during what they though was probably burbotspawning season.

He characterizes the sound they make to attract other fish in the darkness underwater asa revving motorcycle, or the "drumming sound that ruffedgrouse do."

Morning North0:29Singing fish - song of the burbot

A biologist from Yellowknife recorded sounds made by a the ling fish, also known as burbot. Have a listen to the song of the burbot fish.

On mobile? Listen here

From a practical standpoint, Cott said it's important to know how fish use soundin order to mitigate the impact ofcompeting sounds from nearbymachines.

Cott recently had a paper published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research on his findings, called the "Song of the Burbot."