Juvenile zebra finches learn the underlying structural regularities of their fathers’ song. Do You Expect Disco Will Say It? DEFINE_ME. Song sources and recording/analysis methods Recordings of males were conducted as described in Zimmerman et al. [ Zimmerman H.D.
Ramsay S.M. Evolution in white-throated sparrow song: regional variation through shift in terminal strophe type and length. Behaviour. 2016; 153: 1839-1861 ]. Songs donated by other research groups were from general recordings from Autonomous Recording Units (ARUs, either Wildlife Acoustics SM2 or custom-made units used on Breeding Bird Surveys by the Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment and Climate Change Canada).
Songs from recording libraries used a broad array of recording apparatus, from reel-to-reel Nagra III recorders/AKG microphones in 61in parabolas from the historic recordings in the 1950s and 1960s, to digital recorders in modern recordings. All songs were analyzed using spectrographic software to confirm the number of repeating note elements in the terminal strophes of the song. Geolocator Mounting and Recovery Rappole J.H. J. ]. Vocal imitation can create acoustic attractors to guide mothers to pups in a crowded colony of Mexican free-tailed bats: A case-study of computational modelling in behavioural biology.
Hold the front page: prairie dogs still don’t have language. Back in February 2010 I posted a piece about Dr.
Do prairie dogs have language? This is the latest incarnation of the Doctor Doolittle question.
You can replace ‘prairie dog’ with chimpanzee, parrot, dolphin, gorilla and find that someone, somewhere, has reported research findings that say an emphatic, “YES!”. Fairy-Wrens Sing Secret Passwords to Unborn Chicks. Do Animals Have Feelings? Amid the human crush of Old Delhi, on the edge of a medieval bazaar, a red structure with cages on its roof rises three stories above the labyrinth of neon-lit stalls and narrow alleyways, its top floor emblazoned with two words: birds hospital.
To hear more feature stories, see our full list or get the Audm iPhone app. On a hot day last spring, I removed my shoes at the hospital’s entrance and walked up to the second-floor lobby, where a clerk in his late 20s was processing patients. Production of Supra-regular Spatial Sequences by Macaque Monkeys: Current Biology. Rhesus Monkeys Can Assess The Visual Perspective Of Others When Competing For Food. Researchers Jonathan Flombaum and Dr.
Laurie Santos, both from Yale University, have found that rhesus monkeys consider whether a competitor can or cannot see them when trying to steal food. An Experiment to Teach Sparrows New Songs Proved a Wild Success. You can’t teach an adult bird a new tune.
Or can you? New research proves that wild Savannah Sparrows can learn to sing different melodies at two ages, shedding light on critical learning periods for songbirds. Previously only seen in laboratory settings, this is the first experimental study to show the behavior in wild subjects. Savannah Sparrows, which are found in grasslands and coastal habitats across North America, sing slightly varied tunes depending on their location. Mennill’s team took songs recorded on the West Coast and broadcast them to Kent Island birds on the East Coast. Three male Savannah Sparrows singing the typical Kent Island song: Three male Savannah Sparrows singing West Coast songs: Bio-Linguistics: Monkeys Break Through the Syntax Barrier: Current Biology.
Bat calls contain wealth of discernible information: Analyzing some 15,000 bat vocalizations, researchers identify speakers, objectives and contexts of bat conversations. Bats, like humans, are extremely social mammals.
They enjoy an average lifespan of 20-30 years, settle in large colonies, and rely heavily on social interactions for their survival, using vocalizations -- or calls -- for communication. There is very little known about the purpose and content of these noises. A new Tel Aviv University study published in Scientific Reports extracts critical information from bat vocalizations to offer a rare, informative look into the world of bat communication.
The new research, led by Prof. Scientists Use AI to Decode the Ultrasonic Language of Rodents. Luckily for anyone with musophobia—a fear of mice and similar rodents—most of the sounds the little squeakers make while scurrying through the walls of our homes are in a range well out of human hearing.
But that’s not ideal for scientists, who would benefit from listening to the reactions lab rats and lab mice have to certain stimuli. Now they can. A new type of AI called DeepSqueak is able to decode mouse speak and help researchers match the vocalizations with behaviors. Glenn McDonald at Seeker reports that scientists at the University of Washington came up with the software, which analyzes high-pitched, or ultrasonic, mouse vocalizations and turns them into sonograms, or visual representations of the sound.
Machine-learning algorithms then analyze those sonograms for patterns that can be connected with behavior and emotion. So far, the team has found the mice studied make about 20 different types of calls. Manta rays are first fish to recognise themselves in a mirror. By Agata Blaszczak-Boxe Norbert Wu/Minden Pictures/FLPA Looking good.
Giant manta rays have been filmed checking out their reflections in a way that suggests they are self-aware. Only a small number of animals, mostly primates, have passed the mirror test, widely used as a tentative test of self-awareness.