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Researchers from Oberlin College have recorded several recordings of squirrels in their natural habitat, including the ambient hubbub of birds around a bird feeder and the sound of a tailed hawk. red; a predator.
Naturally, after hearing the sound of the hawk, squirrels went on alert, displaying what the study calls "vigilance behavior". This could include freezing, watching more often or getting up.
Hawks v. Birds
However, the researchers found squirrels that had heard the chatter of birds some time after the hawk's sound "expressed significantly lower levels of alertness behavior and faster than those exposed to ambient noise."
According to the researchers, the sounds of birds are "likely to indicate safety because they are usually issued when an imminent threat has not been detected".
Thus, after the reported presence of a threat in the red-tailed hawk, squirrels were more likely to relax if they thought other species around them were also relaxing.
What does it mean
This seems quite natural to humans – we often glean social cues from the behaviors of people around us. But in the animal kingdom, research has generally focused on different species using cries of alarm or other indicators of concern to assess safety. By using the opposite, in this case, the relaxed gossip of untouched birds is something new.
"A few studies have shown that spying non-sentinel calls within co-foraging groups was a safety index," one reads in the study. "However, to our knowledge, our study is the first to demonstrate an indiscrete listening of non-sentinel calls outside of an association of co-foraging groups, indicating that espionage to security purposes may be more prevalent than was previously recognized. "
CNN called the authors of the study for more comments.
This type of research can tell us more about how different species communicate and interact within their multi-species communities. However, he can not tell you why they like to cause a ruckus just outside your house at any time.
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