Most salamanders lack the vocal apparatus of frogs and communicate chemically rather than acoustically. Sirens are among the small number of salamanders for which sound production is reliably reported. Handled lesser sirens emit a distress yelp, and both captive and field observations describe clicking sounds associated with encounters between individuals.
The sounds are not produced by a frog-like larynx and vocal sac. The mechanism is not fully worked out, and clicks may involve the mouth or gill structures. What is documented is that the sounds occur and that they are associated with disturbance and with contact between animals rather than with a breeding chorus.
Sirens' other habits are also easy to misjudge. They lack maxillary teeth, using a horny beak instead, they take plant material as well as invertebrates, and they can aestivate in a cocoon through drought like their larger relative. Their eel-like shape leads to them being killed as supposed snakes; they are harmless salamanders.