Since time immemorial, the rooster crowing at dawn It was synonymous with the start of a new day. It’s a sound we all know, but few people understand why exactly it happens at that moment. Is it simply an instinct, a habit, or is there a scientific explanation behind this characteristic behavior?
Every morning the roosters They seem to announce the sunrise with their incomparable song, But what’s really going on in your body and mind may be more complex than you can imagine. Science has an answer that This goes beyond what we think we know about these animals.
This song (described using onomatopoeia)quiquiriqui‘), so common in rural areas, is one of the many wonders that occur in nature, and scientific studies have shown that the crowing of the rooster is linked to its biological clock and its circadian rhythm.
The reasons why roosters crow at dawn
THE roosters But they sing all day They concentrate their songs at certain times: dawn, noon, mid-afternoon and midnight. However, these animals are known for their morning song, when the first rays welcome the new day.
As shown in Animal expertthe claim that roosters crow at dawn is not entirely true. A study carried out at Japan’s Nagoya University showed that roosters They don’t sing to perceive the sunlight. The reason for this song at dawn is that it is biological clock tells them when to do it.
During the experiment, the researchers exposed these birds to artificial light day and night. This way they could not distinguish between day and night times. To the surprise of scientists, The roosters continued to crow just before sunrise.
This research determined that rooster crowing is marked by your circadian rhythm or your biological clock. Despite this ability, the study does not fully demonstrate that the appearance of sunlight influences this behavior.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation of Chile points out on its website that the rooster crows when the sun rises “because it is believed that it begins the day in reaffirming its authority above the henhouse.
“At dawn, he would emit his dominant sound to check if there was another male ready to challenge him, an encounter that would end in a fight. Otherwise, your hegemony would be established,” they add.
Additionally, studies have found that in species living individually, the crowing of the rooster could also be a call to mating. “The choice of the early hours of the day would be due to better acoustics due to low temperatures and high levels of humidity in the environment, which favor the transmission of sound in the air,” they conclude.
