The mechanics of sound production in the puff adder bitis arietans (Serpentes: viperidae) and the information content of the snake hiss

摘要: Puff adders (Bitis arietans), like many other snakes, hiss as part of their defensive repertoire. In B. arietans, the hisses have a clear quadraphasic pattern consisting an initial exhalatory hiss, brief transitional pause, inhalatory and rest or breath-holding phase. Simultaneous recordings body diameter, electrical activity in intrinsic laryngeal musculature, airflow through nasal passageway sound production revealed that anterior respiratory tract plays passive role hissing costal pump is responsible for generating pattern. During hissing, arietans uses same mechanics previously described normal ventilation snakes. Analyses artificial reveal has little ability to modify exhalant airstream acoustically. The combination simple ventilatory used during lack acoustic modification results acoustically hiss. Cross-correlation matrix analyses variety snake showed high degree similarity between sounds, almost approaching levels determined white noise. This level reflects low specialization within sounds produced by snakes potential encoded information content.