Does music influence certain behaviours in animals?

Javan Rhino

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
In the chatroom, a joke became an interesting discussion as to whether music could influence certain behaviours/moods etc in different species? In particular, the discussion started with regards to 'romantic' music encouraging breeding.

From the off that sounds completely mental, but hear me out with just a couple of examples [I've heard of more, but cannot recall all of them]:

1) Not knowing any names here, but somebody on Caudata has mentioned that their newts have bred after s/he played Barry White music for them.

2) My bearded dragon Thorn seems to like the music of Loreena McKennitt and grows exceptionally relaxed when it is played. [Doesn't support helping breeding, but supports the behavioural influences].


So, do you think animals react to music? Obviously they likely don't understand the words, but does the tone/tempo/pitch etc influence certain behaviours and can 'romantic' music get animals in the mood so to speak [as in fairness, it can get humans in the mood, and we are just another example of a species]?
 
I was at a giraffe conference once and one of the workshops was on designing enrichments for zoo giraffes. The subject of using aural enrichment came up and one of the keepers I was in a group with said that her giraffes definitely responded to the type of music that she played in their barn. When they were getting too boisterous she would play mellow music, and she said that when she played more uptempo music like country or metal that they were more active. So I think that your hypothesis definitely holds some truth.
 
Back
Top