Putting muscle into birdsong: Wide range of pitch is due to vocal muscles more than air pressure

Female zebra finches don't sing but make one-note, low-pitch calls. Males sing over a wide range of frequencies. Scientists discovered how: The males' stronger vocal muscles, not the pressure of air flowing through their lungs, lets them sing from the B note above middle C all the way to a whistle beyond the high end of a piano keyboard.

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