What Animal Sounds Like Several Dogs Yapping

Viral Video: What The Pull a fast one on Actually Sounds Like

Carmine foxes (<em>Vulpes vulpes</e>) are the most widespread fox species.

Red foxes (<em>Vulpes vulpes) are the most widespread pull a fast one on species. (Paradigm credit: Taal Levi)

"Dog goes woof. True cat goes meow. Bird goes tweet, and mouse goes squeak."

Such are the first lines of divine wisdom imparted by "The Fox," a vocal by the Norwegian variety act Ylvis that was released this week and has since gone viral. Merely what noise does the titular brute make? Here, Ylvis takes some liberties as to "what the play a joke on say," including noises that are difficult to transcribe, but include "wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!" and "fraka-kaka-kaka-kaka-kow!"

While the video is pretty awesome, it doesn't stand for existent fob vocalizations. LiveScience turned to a fox researcher — and pulled together some videos of fox vocalizations — to find out what foxes really audio like. [10 Almost Successful Viral Videos Ever]

Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), the near mutual foxes throughout the world, have a wide variety of vocalizations, with equally many every bit 20 different calls depending on how 1 defines them, said Stephen Harris, a biologist at the Academy of Bristol, England, who has studied their vocalizations. They apply these calls to find mates, collaborate with rivals and communicate inside their family groups. This variety befits their role every bit highly social mammals, Harris told LiveScience.

Frantic screams

The loudest and virtually prominent audio fabricated by foxes is the scream or contact call, typically used by vixens, or females, when they are gear up to breed in the belatedly winter and spring, Harris told LiveScience. This "claret-curdling" call "sounds a flake like somebody existence murdered," he said. The phone call is designed to travel long distances and summon suitors. "They are looking for the best fox to mate with," Harris said. The "scream" tin as well be used by males, and by females at other times, though.

One time in the 1970s, Harris tracked a fox through a cemetery, and lost track of the animal — It was a very nighttime and cold nighttime. All of a sudden, "a vixen came down about 5 anxiety [ane.v meters] behind me and screamed in a very loud voice — I leapt straight out of my skin," he said.

Foxes likewise usually bark, which is generally used as another blazon of contact call to reach out to friends or rivals, Harris said. The bark sounds similar to that of a domestic dog, except slightly college pitched and sometimes shrill. Studies on other species of foxes bear witness that the animals can recognize each other based on their calls, which isn't that surprising, Harris added.

Fox cubs also bark, in a way that's similar to adults. "Fifty-fifty when they're newborn and blind they call to their female parent to proceed in touch," Harris said. The bark sounds a trivial bit similar "wow-wow-wow," he added. .[Video: Play tricks Uses Clever Hunting Tricks]

The animals besides emit a wide diversity of whines and squeals that take different meanings that can change based on the context and the fox's body language. For example, squeals can be used to show that 1 fox is submitting to some other. But foxes also squeal when they are excited, Harris said. Perhaps this is the fox version of "squee."

In addition to growling, foxes can also make a guttural sound in the back of their pharynx called "clicketing," which generally happens during the mating flavor, Harris said. "We don't know quite what it means," he added.

Why non better known?

As the song notes, the feature sounds of other animals are improve known, or at least codified in a recognizable form of onomatopoeia like "woof" or "meow." But why aren't fox calls amend known?

The difficulty of putting flim-flam sounds into words is certainly i obvious reason. It isn't exactly easy to describe a scream, for example. But here'due south an attempt: "WRAHHHHHGH!!!!" Foxes are wild animals also and haven't been successfully domesticated in the aforementioned way every bit dogs were from wolves, making them less familiar to earlier humans who first made upward the words to depict the sounds made by other animals.

"If you follow an individual play tricks around at night, about nights the foxes won't make a telephone call at all, or it'll be very soft," Harris said. "Foxes are moderately tranquillity animals."

Finally, despite having a variety of vocalizations, foxes communicate even more with scents, and don't make noises that often.

Email Douglas Main or follow him on Twitter or Google+ . Follow us @livescience , Facebook or Google+ . Article originally on LiveScience.

Douglas Main loves the weird and wonderful globe of science, digging into astonishing Planet Earth discoveries and wacky animal findings (from marsupials mating themselves to death to zombie worms to tear-drinking butterflies) for Alive Science. Follow Doug on Google+.