Ways that Animal Wings Produce Sound

Abstract

Synopsis There are at least eight ways that wings potentially produce sound. Five mechanisms are aerodynamic sounds, created by airflow, and three are structural sound created by interactions of solid surfaces. Animal flight is low Mach (M), meaning all animals move at <30% of the speed of sound. Thus in aerodynamic mechanisms the effects of air compressibility can be ignored, except in mechanism #1. Mechanism #1 is trapped air, in which air approaches or exceeds Mach 1 as it escapes a constriction. This mechanism is hypothetical but likely. #2 is Gutin sound, the aerodynamic reaction to lift and drag. This mechanism is ubiquitous in flight, and generates low frequency sound such as the humming of hummingbirds or insect wing tones. #3 is turbulence-generated atonal whooshing sounds, which are also widespread in animal flight. #4 are whistles, tonal sounds generated by geometry-induced flow feedback. This mechanism is hypothetical. #5 is aeroelastic flutter, sound generated by elasticity-induced feedback that is usually but not always tonal. This is widespread in birds (feathers are predisposed to flutter) but apparently not bats or insects. Mechanism #6 is rubbing sound (including stridulation), created when bird feathers or insect wings slide past each other. Atonal rubbing sounds are widespread in bird flight and insects; tonal stridulation is widespread in insects. #7 is percussion, created when two stiff elements collide and vibrate, and is present in some birds and insects. Mechanism #8 are tymbals and other bistable conformations. These are stiff elements that snap back and forth between two conformations, producing impulsive, atonal sound. Tymbals are widespread in insects but not birds or bats; insect cuticle appears predisposed to form tymbals. There are few examples of bat wing sounds: are bats intrinsically quiet, or just under-studied? These mechanisms, especially Gutin sound, whooshes, and rubbing (#2, #3, and #6) are prominent cues in ordinary flight of all flying animals, and are the “acoustic substrate” available to be converted from an adventitious sound (cue) into a communication signal. For instance, wing sounds have many times evolved into signals that are incorporated into courtship displays. Conversely, these are the sounds selected to be suppressed if quiet flight is selected for. The physical mechanisms that underlie animal sounds provide context for understanding the ways in which signals and cues may evolve.