Even fish have love songs

a closeup of the head of a male Gulf toadfish, Opsanus beta, is shown in this handout photo provided by the journal Science. The fish has been found to hum to attract mates.

? It’s not exactly Tony serenading Maria in “West Side Story,” but for all their homeliness toadfish also sing to attract mates.

OK, singing may be a stretch; it’s more of a hum. But it turns out to be useful, for science as well as the fish. Exploring how their nervous system produces sounds is allowing scientists to trace the earliest developments of vocalization in other animals, including people.

Many animals communicate vocally – birds chirp, frogs thrum, whales whistle – and comparing the nerve networks in a variety of vertebrates suggests that making sounds originated in ancient fishes, researchers report in today’s edition of the journal Science.

The sounds of whales and dolphins are well known, but most people don’t realize fish also make sounds, lead researcher Andrew H. Bass of Cornell University, a professor of neurobiology and behavior.

“I’m not saying fish have a language or are using higher powers of the brain,” he added quickly. “But some of the networks of neurons, nerve cells in the brain, are very ancient.”

The whole nervous system basis that led to speech originated in fish hundreds of millions of years ago, he said.

The locations of the vocal nerves described in the study are consistent with the organization of the vocal systems in frogs, birds and mammals, supporting the idea of a common early development, Daniel Margoliash and Melina E. Hale of the University of Chicago comment in a perspective on Bass’ study.

Bass’ team found two major uses of sound.

One is the hum in which the male toadfish sings to attract the female to his nest. Bass characterized it as like the drone of bees. The second type is a threat sound, more of a grunt or growl, to protect nesting territory.