カエルの合唱の正体がわかった！

Tonight, the big frog chorus started just like usual.
The chorus echoes from the rice fields a bit far from my house because there is nothing around them.

In the garden right next to my bedroom, there is another chorus singing very loudly.
It feels very traditional, a true symbol of summer.

The frogs’ croaking is a courtship behavior of the males.

What humans and animals do is not so different.

Even without words, it feels like they are communicating properly.

Humans have emotions, so we can think about the other person or use words to express things, like “They might not like this” or “They might be happy if I do this.”

I wonder if animals think about such things too.

I just happened to be born as a human, but I think I could have been born as a frog.
Thinking about it this way, I am really lucky to be born as a human who can think about many things and have questions.

However, from a frog’s perspective, they might think humans are unhappy.
Our thoughts are too complex, we care too much about others, and we cannot live without money.

On such a night, a slightly funny thing happened.
While listening to the usual big frog chorus, I was thinking about going to bed.

Then, I burst out laughing.
The boss part-leader was croaking “gero-gero” in a very noticeable voice.

The chorus seemed together but was slightly off-beat, which caught my attention…
Maybe it is polyphony.

As I listened for a while, another frog was encouraged by the boss, raising its voice even louder, and croaking with all its might from its stomach.

While they were competing with each other in the big chorus, one frog choked and went “keho!” (laughs).

It sounds like I am exaggerating the story, but it is true.
It happened right outside the screen door of my bedroom, so there is no mistake.

At that exact moment, the song that was so loud stopped instantly for everyone.
Somehow, a warm atmosphere filled the air.

It might just be my imagination, though.

Then, the frog that seemed to be the boss checked on the frog that choked, and everyone started croaking again.

Let’s all call the cute girl with our beautiful voices!

There are roles like soprano, mezzo, alto, and a conductor who brings everything together, a marriage-hunting choir where everyone oversees their part.

Thinking about it this way, I wonder if the world we live in and their chorus team run on the same mechanism.

Humans who interact using words,
Frogs that communicate using voices,
Even though the ways to express are different, we are the same living things.
It was a night where I felt like I discovered something amazing all by myself.

Actually, when I searched about the story I just told, thinking it could not be true, surprisingly, there were research results in the field of biology!

“In this study, we analyzed the recorded data of male Japanese tree frogs and found that they form a chorus by shifting their calling timing on a short time scale, and by switching between calling and resting states all together on a long time scale.”
Quoted from the University of Tsukuba Official Website

They call by taking turns so that their voice does not overlap with the voice of the frog next to them.

Why do they shift their timing to call?

It is believed that if their voices overlap, the female frogs cannot tell the individual males apart.

It seems my polyphony hypothesis was wrong.

Surprisingly, there was also research showing that frogs, who were just singing triumphantly, sometimes stop all at once. The reason for stopping is fatigue (hypothesis) from continuing to call from evening until after midnight, so they take a break.

My theory that the frog choked from calling too hard was actually correct in a way.

So they take a break because they are tired. That makes sense. It is an all-night love call, after all.

Since I had the chance, I played around with the “Frog Chorus.” John Cage style. (A combination of C, G, and Bm chords stacked together)

To call without overlapping each other and to sing all night at a certain tempo requires not only skill but also physical strength. I had never thought about frogs calling that way until now.

I seriously thought that they are doing something very advanced.