Acoustic Sounds of Japanese Crested Ibis Nipponia nippon in Japan and China

Abstract

I analyzed the several acoustic sounds of Japanese Crested Ibis Nipponia nippon which is one of the species in danger of extermination in the world, by means of sound spectrograph (Rion SG-07). The acoutic sounds of so-called Kinchan (female) in the cage (Toki Hogo Center, Sado, Niigata Pref. Japan) and of the breeding one in China were compared with several sonagrams shown by the pattern of 7.2 second (2.5KHz). Dement'ev (1969) reported that voice of Japanese Crested Ibis resembles croaking of Raven, but it was, in fact, much louder, and it may be expressed as ka-ga, ka-ga and sometimes as kag, kag. In this study, I recorded three kinds of different sonagrams of Kinchan (Kwa, kwau and Kwa-n) and four kinds of sonagrams in China (Kwa, kwa-u, Kwan and Kwa-n). The sonagrams of Kwa-n in Kinchan and those in China are said to be similar sounds, but it is clear that both sonagrams are somewhat different from each other.