Here on Neatorama, we have shared what plant screams sound like, as well as what solar eclipses sound like. In keeping with the season, we will be sharing what the most frightening animal in the world sounds like. The first thing that we have to ask ourselves is, what is the most frightening animal in the world? Depending on the criteria you use, it could be different for different people. Some may be afraid of lions, bears, hyenas, or rattlesnakes.
In this podcast on Scientific American, Karen Hopkin speaks with Liana Zanette, a professor of biology at Western University in Ontario, about this particular subject. Liana's team has been researching the ecology of fear for the past two decades, and the criteria that they use to identify which is the most frightening animal in the world is in terms of the predator-prey interactions. So, she and her team set up an experiment to study how animals responded to audio cues.
This short video clip shows a sample of what their study had found:
Their experiment included three different sounds: one from a lion growling, one with a bird chirping, and one where people were talking. And they discovered that animals were more likely to flee from humans than from lions. We humans fear wild animals because they can kill us. But, human beings have also killed animals, and at far greater rates than even the most terrifying wild beasts in the wilderness.
(Image credit: Iván Díaz/Unsplash)