Wait… If the plants are whispering to my cat late at night. Is that why the little fucker spazzes out and goes crazy all over the house at 3 am?
Well, during the day plants are busy working (photosynthesising, defending, sticking pollen to bugs), they only have a chance to get socially chatty at night.
And cats love plant humour.
Except that of succulents. They crunch too much.That and all the ghost activity at 3am
Plants talk? As in rustle with movement or communicate through sound? Can plants hear? The world is amazing, I’ll be on Wikipedia for a few.
There are high frequency sounds that they emit when they experience certain stimuli, for example when not having enough water or leaves being torn. As far as I know some other plants or insects might be evolutionarily tuned to recognize those sounds and react to them. So yes, in a way plants can talk.
does that mean cats hear house plants scream while they are chewing on their leaves
How do we know that sound signals recorded aren’t just from the release of biomolecules? Using the nervous system to produce sound is a more intentional process than the release of biomolecules for chemical signaling, which is something even simple multicellular organism do
You’re right that it doesn’t have to be talking. But it is a sound cats and dogs can hear. They do hear the plant noise, which is cool.
It’s cool to us.
I can absolutely confirm that neither cats nor dogs particularly enjoy hearing multiple frequencies in that range, as I use ultrasonic noisemakers to train dogs and cats. Both species have had specific individuals that reacted as though I had just beaten them, and all the individuals of both species reacted in such a way that it was clear that they would do just about anything to never hear those noises again.
That being said, I wonder if they could hear that frequency all the time and were freaked out that a human was shouting in plant language.
The unpleasant reaction could be to the shape of the sound rather than just the frequency. Like a sin wave isn’t a pleasant sound, though it’s not bad at lower amplitudes.
Possible. I couldn’t tell you since I can’t hear it, and am uncertain if I have a microphone that could detect that frequency
Do they show similar signs of distress around plants in general? Are they reluctant to enter forests? Do they randomly destroy plants?
Lol I thought it would be clear until that last question, which is something both cats and dogs are known to do on occasion.
You were probably saying “fuck me” in a sultry voice. I sympathize with the animals.
Right, but what’s the source of the sound? If it’s not intentionally produced, but rather a chemical reaction or reaction byproduct, then it says something different about plant communication
I agree, I just don’t think it’s that relevant to the post, which was more about how our pets experience the world.
The sounds produced by plants aren’t used for communication, at least as far as I’ve understood it. They are, as you say, just sounds produced as part of other processes. They aren’t talking any more than a tree talks when in creaks in the wind.
This is what happens when you get too high and Dr Dog - Listening In is playing
Is it possible to record those higher frequencies and then turn them down so I can hear how noisy it is for my dog at home?
Probably. If astronomers can convert the radio noise stars make into audible sound - and they can - then I don’t see why we couldn’t pitch adjust background noise to human-audible levels.
I’m not 100% on the pitching down bit, but key would be to get a mic that has those frequencies in its range.
Sorry to link to CNN but I was skeptical and here’s a good enough summary
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/30/world/plants-make-sounds-scn/index.html
