Why are some animals good at learning sounds? Did this skill appear when animals started "faking" their body size by lowering calls? In a new study on a wide range of mammals, Andrea Ravignani from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Maxime Garcia from the University of Zurich revisit this question. Surprisingly, many animals who are skilled vocalists (such as dolphins and seals) actually sound higher than would be expected for their body size.