The Phoenicians were no more successful, although they bequeathed a memorable nickname to posterity: I-shepan-ha, “land of hyraxes” (more familiar as Hispania).
Rodents, horses, whales, and even hyraxes have been shown to exhibit important health outcomes that correlate with their social environment and relationships.
" We've tried to understand the meaning of all this-why a hyrax would waste time and energy and expose himself to predators by singing such a loud song."
Weissman thinks that the snort crescendo, together with the increasing harshness, make the songs impossible to ignore and grabs the attention of other hyraxes—which makes sense.
And a 2004 study similarly observed that hyraxes raised on cooked foods experienced roughly 10% less growth in facial areas involved in chewing compared to those given raw and dried foods.
He believes that understanding why hyraxes sing, and how they construct their songs, could reveal something about the evolutionary origins of human speech and human music—which is no snorting matter.
Each species of tree hyrax has its own unique call: due to their distinctive shrieks, Oates and an international team of researchers discovered a new species of the mammal.
One of the first perissodactyls we know of was Hyracotherium, a small ungulate whose fossils were first discovered in England and named, for some reason, for its supposed resemblance to the rock hyrax.
A study on small rodents called hyraxes for example found that animals raised on softer cooked food instead of raw or dried food had less growth in the bones of their jaws and lower faces.