Animal communication refers to the transfer of information between one or a group of animals (the sender) and one or more animals (the receiver) that can change the receiver's current or future behavior.
The transmission of information can be intentional, such as courtship performances, or unintentional, such as the smell of prey by a hunter. The same information can be passed to several different recipients.
If the message from the sender changes the behavior of a receiver, the message is called a "signal." According to signal theory, for a signal to persist in a population, both the sender and receiver should generally benefit from the transmission of information.
It is generally believed that the signal generation of the sender and the signal understanding and subsequent response of the receiver are co-evolved. Signals often use multiple mechanisms at the same time, such as the combination of visual and auditory signals. To understand a signal, the synergistic behavior of the sender and receiver must be thoroughly studied.
Patterns of animal communication
Visual communication
posture
The most common communication is the display of a specific body part and a particular body movement, both of which often occur at the same time, such as an action that shows or highlights the body part.
A clear example is when an adult silver gull shows its beak to a chick, which means it feeds the chicks. Like most gulls, the silver gull has a brightly coloured beak, a yellow beak, and a red dot slightly lower from the lower jaw at the tip of the beak. When an adult silver gull returns to the nest with food, it will stand next to the chick and strike the ground with its beak; this will cause a begging reaction (pecking at the red dot) of the hungry chick, which in turn will stimulate the adult silver gull to return the food from the stomach. Thus, the full signal consists of a specific morphological feature (body part), a beak with a red dot, and a special action (tapping the ground so that the chicks can clearly see the red dot).
While all primates pose certainly, apes and humans are two distinct groups of animals, and only these two types of animals intentionally use poses to communicate. The hypothesis that posture evolved into language was examined by studying bonobos and chimpanzees' body postures.
facial expression
Facial expressions play a very important role in animal communication. A facial expression is often an emotional signal.
For example, dogs will roar and show their teeth when angry, prick up their ears when alert, and lie down when they are afraid, bare their teeth, and squint their eyes.
By studying the facial expressions of mice with varying degrees of pain, it was found that mice had five recognizable facial expressions: eye socket tightening, nose swelling, cheek swelling, ear changes, and beard shaking.
Gaze follows
Social animals coordinate communication between them by observing the direction of their respective heads and eyes. This type of behavior has long been seen as an important part of human communication in the process of human development, and gaze following has recently gained considerable attention in the animal field.
The researchers studied apes, monkeys, dogs, birds and turtles, and there were two main studies:
Follow the gaze of another animal into the distance.
Geometrically following the view of another animal around a visual impairment, such as when an obstacle blocks the view of an animal to change its position to follow the view of another animal.
The study found that many animals have the former ability, but only apes, dogs, wolves, and crows have the latter ability; the researchers' cognitive basis for gaze following is still unclear, but there is evolutionary evidence that "ordinary" gaze following and "geometric" line of sight follow are likely to rely on different cognitive mechanisms.
Color variations
Color changes can be divided into color changes that occur during biological growth and development and color changes caused by mood, social environment, or abiotic factors such as temperature, the latter commonly found in many taxa.
Some cephalopods such as octopus and squid have specialized skin cells (pigment cells) that alter the surface color, transparency, and reflectivity of the skin. The rapid change of color, in addition to being used as camouflage, also plays a role in hunting and courtship rituals.
The squid will send two completely different signals from both sides of the body at the same time. When a male squid courtes a female squid in front of other males, he will show a representation of the male on the side of the female, and a representation of the female on the other male side to deceive them. For more exciting content, please pay attention to the "Animal World" WeChat public account: iltawcom
Some of the color signals are periodic, for example, some primate areas will swell and appear bright red/pink, indicating that it can mate.
Biological light communication
Communication by luminescence is generally found in the ocean, especially in the deep sea, by vertebrates and non-vertebrates (such as fish). Fireflies are the most well-known luminous creatures on land. Other insects, insect larvae, link animals, arachnids and even fungi have the ability to emit light. Some luminous animals emit light on their own, while others emit light through symbiotic luminous bacteria.
Auditory communication
Many animals communicate through sound. From courtship rituals and warning chimes to communicating food locations and social learning, voice communication plays many different roles.
In many species, males make chirps during courtship to attract females as if they were competing with other males. Such animals include hammerhead fruit bats, red deer, humpback whales, elephant seals and songbirds.
Other examples of vocal communication are the warning cries of long-tailed monkeys and the territorial cries of gibbons.
The velvet monkeys will make distinct warning calls to the four different predators, while the other monkeys will respond differently to different calls. For example, if a warning sound representing a giant python is heard, the monkey will climb to a tree, and if a warning sound representing an eagle (bird of prey) is heard, the monkey will look for a hiding place on the ground.
Prairie marmots also use complex calls to distinguish between different predators. Warning calls contain information about the type, size, and speed of an approaching predator.
Whales in different regions have their own "dialects".
Not all animals use calls as a tool for communicating sounds. Many arthropods make sounds by rubbing specialized body parts, which is called friction pronunciation.
Crickets and grasshoppers are known for their friction pronunciation, but there are many other animals that use friction pronunciation, including crustaceans, spiders, scorpions, wasps, ants, beets, butterflies, moths, horses and centipedes.
Another method of sound communication is the vibration of the maw of the teleost fish, and the structure of the fish maw of different species of bony fish and the vocal muscles connected to it are very different, making the sounds of various bony fish very different.
Impact on body parts can also emit sound signals, such as the known rattlesnake through the tip of the tail vibration to issue warning signals, similar examples include birds' beak bumping behavior, pygmy birds flapping their wings during courtship, and gorilla hammers on the chest.
Olfactory communication
Although chemical communication is the oldest form of communication, we know the least about it. Part of the reason for this is that there are so many chemicals in the environment we live in, and it's not easy to test and measure all the chemicals in a sample.
The ability to detect chemicals in the environment has many uses for organisms, one of the most important uses is to find food, a function that first appeared in single-celled organisms (bacteria) living in the oceans in the early days of life on Earth. As olfactory function continued to evolve, organisms began to be able to distinguish between compounds of different origins, such as those from subsistence resources, compounds from allomorphs (such as mates and relatives), and compounds from xenomorphs (such as competitors and predators).
For mammals, odor marking is a common olfactory communication.
Electrical signal AC
Electrical signal AC is rare in animal AC, mostly found in aquatic animals, and some terrestrial animals, especially platypus and echidnas, can feel the electric field signals that may be used for AC.
The African weevil provides us with examples of electrical signal acs and electrical signal localization. These fish generate an electric field that can be perceived by electrical sensors through electrical organs, and different waveforms of the electric field and changes in frequency can transmit species information, gender information, and identity information. Elephant trunk fish produce electrical signals when they are affected by hormones and diurnal rhythms, as well as when communicating with other fish.
Some predators such as sharks and fish can eavesdrop on the acoustion of these electric fish through passive inductance.
Tactile communication
Fight
In a fight, touch can be used to provoke an opponent or coordinate body movements, and the loser of a fight also uses touch to indicate submission.
Courtship
Mammals generally initiate courtship by smoothing their hair, stroking, and rubbing against each other. Animals are able to release chemical signals through these actions while distinguishing those from potential partners. Males express their desire to mate with females through touch, and throughout the courtship process, touch stimulation plays an important role in postural adjustment, coordination, and reproduction.
Social Integration
Touch is very widespread in social integration, the most typical example of which is the combing behavior between animals. Combing has a variety of functions; it can clean up parasites and dirt from animals, stabilize social ties or hierarchical relationships between animals, and also give the grooming party the opportunity to check the olfactory cues on the groomed party, and even add some new olfactory cues. Social insects, birds, and mammals have all been observed to exhibit this behavior.
foraging
When some species of ants call on their companions to enjoy newly discovered food together, they first tap their companions with their antennae and front legs, and then lead their companions to the food while maintaining physical contact, similar to the bee tail dance.
cluster
Persistent physical contact or clustering also plays a role in social integration. Clusters facilitate heat exchange, as well as the exchange of olfactory or tactile information.
Some organisms have long gathered in one place to live and communicate, such as coral groups. When individuals are closely linked in such a way, the entire biota can respond to harm avoidance or vigilance behaviors of some individuals.
Vibration AC
Vibration exchange refers to the exchange of information based on soil, water, spider webs, plant roots and grass as a medium, and is transmitted through the vibration signal generated by the animal itself. This type of communication has many advantages, for example, it is not affected by light and sound, while the transmission range is small and short in duration, reducing the likelihood of detection by predators.
Many animals use this method to communicate, such as frogs, rodents, moles, bees, nematodes, and so on. Tetrapods usually strike the ground with a body part to send out vibration waves, a signal that can be detected by the receiver's balloon. Vibration also works in conjunction with other modes of communication.
The balloon is an organ in the inner ear of an animal that contains a membrane sac that is balanced, while animals that use vibrational communication can use to detect vibration waves.
Thermal energy accretion
Many species of snakes are able to sense infrared thermal radiation, an ability that allows these reptiles to learn their tracks through thermal radiation emitted by predators or prey with wavelengths between 5 and 30 microns. The accuracy of the infrared heat sensing is extremely high, and a blind rattlesnake can use the infrared heat sensing to target the key parts of the prey to launch an attack. The buccal fossa was previously thought to be primarily used to detect prey, but it is now thought to be able to be used to control body temperature as well.
The nasal lobes of vampire bats (round leaf-mouth bats) have specialized infrared receptors. The vampire bat is the only mammal that feeds entirely on blood. Infrared sensing enables leaf-mouth bats to locate thermostatic animals such as cattle and horses in the range of 10 to 15 cm. This type of infrared detection may be used to detect areas of the target prey with the greatest blood flow.