- Animal Communication
- Humans communicate with each other through language, non-verbal cues (smile, frown, etc)., and visual cues (ex. painting rooms pink vs. black)
- Other animals have ways of communicating as well, with many non-verbal cues and visual cues, and other cues not used by humans.
- Who are animals communicating with?
- Members of same species, or members of other species like humans.
- Autocommunication – can give information to themselves. Ex. bats and echolocation
- What are they trying to communicate?
- Mating rituals, to attract opposite sex
- To establish/defend territory
- To convey information about food location
- Alarm calls, to warn others about predators
- Signal dominance and submission
- Watch about for anthropomorphism – attributing human characteristics to non-human animals, ex. pet sleeping with you at night.
- Types of Animal Communication
- Sound – can convey a lot of information
- mating calls, warning sounds, etc. Useful because it’s fast, can reach many, but not very private and exposes the animal’s location.
- Chemical signals – Gain info from the environment through smells. They can release scents called pheromones. Can detect predators using smell, or presence of other animals. Tends to be a lot slower than sound, but a lot longer lasting. But can be “noisy” – a lot of chemical signals in a given area.
- Somatosensory communication – Touch and movement.. Can also convey food location (bees), pair bonding (birds cuddle/prune mates), body language. Also seismic communication (ex. movement of bug in spider’s web signals to spider to find it), electro-communication (fish)
- mating dances
- Visual cues – to find a mate
- color on birds. Mimicry, camouflage.
- Sound – can convey a lot of information
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