Why are they called whooping crane?
The whooper gets its name from its call. Cranes make a variety of sounds, but most cranes have a special one that it performs with its mate, called a unison call. The whoopers’ call is louder than many other crane species and can be heard over great distances. The reason the whoopers are so loud is because of their trachea. We have tracheas, too; it’s the tube in our throat that we breathe through. Cranes have a very long trachea, which coil inside their breast bone. The whooper’s trachea coils around twice, like a French horn, and that gives the bird its loud resonance.
