Stumble across a feisty feline, piss off a snake in the wild, or get a little too close to a family of geese , and you’ll likely be greeted with the same sound: a sharp, angry hiss. From reptiles to mammals to even certain birds, hissing shows up all over the animal kingdom. But why do so many different creatures make the same noise, who started it, and why is it usually a warning? The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Hissing is the most distributed warning sound in vertebrates, and it can sound shockingly similar between animals, regardless of body size or species. Categorized as ventilatory sounds, hisses in vertebrate species are produced using the respiratory system.

Snakes create their hisses by forcibly expelling

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