1 Latest news about animal communication
A number of scientific papers on animal language, as well on the origins of human writing, have found their way into the mainstream media this past month. Oddly, some of the most publicised "breakthroughs" are essentially trivial refinements of ideas that have been generally understood for many years. For example, MSNBC recently ran a front page story with this headline: Writing traced to nature, ancient shapes. The article argues that the letter L displays a corner. Since our lives are full of corners, the corner evolved to became the letter L because it was an easy form for our eyes to distinguish. Wouldn't a 50 year old Encyclopedia entry for "alphabet" provide much the same information? This latest research argues that the so-called breakthrough is the emphasis on easy reading, as opposed to previous research that concluded that humans chose the L form because it was easy to write. Of course this argument loses all power to pursuade when we acknowledge that 50% of the human race employs a form of writing based on complex ideograms?
Another well-publicized scientific paper demonstrates that dolphins vocalize names for all the members of a pod. These names are called signature whistles. But where's the news? I learned this key fact about dolphin language by reading John Lilly in the 1970s. In my own book, The Charged Border, (just published in a German edition by AT Verlag), I wrote about dolphins and beluga whales initiating every conversation with a signature whistle. These highly social animals live in the ocean where sight distance is limited. They developed signatures to comprehend which animal is verbalizing at any single moment. In certain species, each individual in a pod enunciates his or her unique signature at the start of every vocalization. Distinguished cetacean researcher, Michel Andre, has observed the same grammmatical structure in cachalot communication. Because cachalot language consists almost entirely of poly-rhythmic clicks, an African drummer on Andre's staff, was the first person to ID individual whales only by listening to the click patterns received by hydrophones dangling off their research vessel. In truth, researchers should — but are not, yet — referring to signatures as one aspect of the grammar of a complex toothed whale language.
The revolutonary idea of a non-human grammar appears in this recent headline from National Geographic Online: Monkeys Use "Sentences," Study Suggests. Back in the 1970's, biologists discovered that African vervet monkeys employ unique alarm calls for three predators: eagle, snake, and leopard. Calling "eagle" prompts the troop to scamper for the ground, while snake causes the opposite effect. The new study hypothesizes that a cousin to the vervet, known as the putty-faced monkey, stitches these separate alarm calls together to create entirely new meaning. "Pyow" is their alarm call for leopard. "Hack" alerts them to an eagle hovering above. By ingeniously playing a recording of "Pyow-hack" together, the researchers determined that the complex message took on a new shade of meaning, essentially, "let's get out of this place, quicker than we ordinarly would if it was just one or the other". But I see no logical justifcation to reach this conclusion. If there was a leopard climbing from below, and an eagle hovering above, then neither ground not treetop would solve the usual exit strategy. I for one, wish the researchers had first transmitted "pyow-hack", and then followed it up a few day's later by transmitting "hack-pyow." if the response remained the same, then we may conclude that the double call is not a sentence, but a monkeys version of being caught between a rock and a hard place.
Easily the most profound animal study of the past few months made no mainstream headlines. It was an incident documented by Scott Veirs of San Juan Island working under the BeamReach project. Veirs describes, with narrative flair, the rare orca "greeting ceremony" which has been observed for years in Puget Sound. The BeamReach website presents us with a beautiful video of one such ceremony that occurred in 2005. So what's new about an orca behavior that's been observed for years? After reading Veirs account, you may well ponder as I did: when was the last time you heard a Ph.D zoologist discussing any animal behavior as a "ceremony". And there is something profound to ponder. Veirs' documented event was the last time any of the researchers saw the old matriarch of the pod. It is generally agreed, that the elder died within a few days afterwards. Veirs takes a giant step into the future of animal behavior studies when he concludes: "Could we have witnessed a "goodbye" ceremony?" With his vivid description of foraging going on all around the whales as they formed a line, the event begins to sound a bit like the whale's version of a testimonial dinner held for a much-beloved, and terminally ill auntie.
To end on a light note, you just gotta hear the singing of this Australian dingo. And if you do, be sure to take the sound tour of this website focusing on bizarre Australian music. A dingo is one thing. Music made with a grain silo is something else. OR dig even deeper and hear music made with a cactus instrument. I wondered if the players take out an insurance policy before a performance.
