Singing in Non-human Species
Scholars agree that singing is strongly present in many non-human species. Wide dispersal of singing behavior among very different animal species (like birds, gibbons, whales, and humans) strongly suggests that singing appeared independently in different species. Currently there are about 5400 species of animals that can sing. At least some singing species demonstrate the ability to learn their songs, to improvise and even to compose new melodies. In some animal species singing is a group activity (see, for example, singing in gibbon families.)
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Famous quotes containing the words singing, non-human and/or species:
“The cuckoo is a lazy bird,
She never builds a nest,
She makes herself busy
By singing to the rest.”
—Unknown. The Cuckoo (l. 9–12)
“Almost like a god looking at her terribly out of the everlasting dark, she had felt the eyes of that horse; great glowing, fearsome eyes, arched with a question, and containing a white blade of light like a threat. What was his non-human question, and his uncanny threat? She didn’t know. He was some splendid demon, and she must worship him.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Let us guard against saying that death is opposed to life. The living is merely a species of the dead, and a very rare species.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)