Ari Daniel
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We finally know how horses produce these two tones at the same time.
Horse whinnies are made up of two tones, one low and one high.
A team of researchers wanted to know more, since it's rare for mammals to produce two simultaneous frequencies like this.
So they videoed the vocal tract of whinnying stallions.
They CT scanned half a dozen horse larynxes.
And they audio recorded the whinnies of several horses with a rare disease that tends to paralyze one of the vocal folds.
Elodie Briefer is an animal behavioral scientist at the University of Copenhagen, and she and her colleagues conclude that a whinny is a unique blend of vocal fold vibration that generates the low pitch and a whistling above the larynx that produces the high pitch.
For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel.
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