Animal Communication
Understanding How and Why Animals Communicate
The study of animal communication has played an important role in the development of behavioral ecology, ethology, and the study of animal cognition (intelligence).
Communication is the Act of Sending and Receiving
The sender and receiver of a communication may be of the same species (intraspecies) or of different species (interspecies). Behavioral ecologists tend to focus on intraspecific communication as it represents the majority of animal communication.
Animal communication takes a number of different forms. The most distinctive forms of communication tend to be visual displays of often brightly colored body parts, or distinctive body movements. There is no better example of coloration as communication than the amazing tail feathers of a peacock and no more complicated body movement communication than the dance language of the honey bee.
Vocalization is also an effective means of communication that has the added benefit of allowing the vocalizer to remain hidden from the prying eyes of potential predators. The best known vocalizers are birds and whales with their complicated, melodious, and haunting songs. However, many other animals also vocalize – frogs croak; king cobras will emit a growl-like hiss while the African puff adder produces a bell-like chiming sound; lions and tigers roar and bellow and many monkeys and apes screech and caterwaul.
The strangest vocalization may be that of singing mice. Many accounts of singing mice are on file but the explanation for their vocal talents remains unclear. In his book, Animal Curiosities (1922), W. S. Berridge documents a quite amazing example of singing mice: “...a specimen kept by a lady as a pet was able to run up an octave when singing...it would often finish its vocal performance with a trill. When thus engaged it would vibrate and inflate its throat in the manner of a bird in song, and usually assume an upright posture upon its hind feet.”
Chemical Communication
Chemical signals are likely the oldest and most widespread means of communication by which animal signal other members of their species. Any body secretion that functions as a mode of communication is called a pheromone. Pheromone communication has been discovered in nearly all organisms from unicellular protozoa to human beings.
Most pheromones act as releasers, eliciting a very specific but transitory type of behavior in the recipient. Others act as primers, evoking slower and longer lasting responses. In social insects releaser pheromones supplement visual and tactile clues in leading members of the colony back to a food source, as in the trail pheromones of ants. Some pheromones enable members of a colony to recognize one another, and some warn the colony (alarm pheromones) of foreign invaders. In many species, pheromones are important in attracting a mate and in gender recognition.
Some pheromones function over great relative distance and in often miniscule amounts. Sex pheromones released by some female lepidoterans (moths and butterflies) can be detected by a potential mate from as far as 10 km (6 miles) away. Special receptors on the antennae of male silk moths (Bombyx mori) can detect a female sex pheromone known as bombykol in concentrations as low as one molecule of bombykol in 1017 molecules of air.
Whether the signals be visual, vocal or chemical, animals have evolved an amazing repertoire of communication strategies they use to communicate with other animals around them.
Howler Monkey Communications Carry for Miles
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