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Song of the Baby Crocodile - WAV File - Photos

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If you are reckless enough to hang out at a crocodile rookery, and your timing is just right, you may hear a strange, subterranean "oom-pah" noise. If the four-meter momma croc on the sand does not scare you across the river, you'll notice that she begins digging lickety-split once she hears those murmurs.

Is this communication, or coincidence?

Oom-pah, maybe, but we are not talking reptilian polka...

If you dared poke a camera into the nest, which can contain up to 30 eggs, you'd notice the eggshells cracking pretty much in unison, spewing out a croc apiece, just in time for mom's frantic digging.

Is this communication, or coincidence?

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Crooning is powerful

People have known for years that about-to-hatch crocs murmur from below the sand, but until now nobody had documented the sound's effect on behavior, says Amelie Vergne, a doctoral researcher at Jean Monnet. "We made the experiment to see what was the cause for the behavior. Many people who met crocodiles in the wild heard them calling, but nobody really knew what was the function, why the baby was calling."

Crooning is powerful, she found: all four of the seven eggs that audited the real croc-leider broke through the shell within 10 minutes. Only one of the six eggs that hatched in the other two groups (each containing five eggs) hatched in that time period.

Coordinating the below- and above-ground movements of mom and her mini-crocs has obvious evolutionary value, Vergne says. Although she cannot prove that the animals would die without the communication, it certainly seems to boost their odds of surviving the vulnerable hatching phase, and many birds also use their voices to signal the onset of hatching, Vergne notes.