Panda’s have a large vocabulary of grunts, moans, chirps, honks, growls, etc. but one study focused on the “bleat”calls they using during the mating season and found some interesting results as to what information the pandas were communicating to each other.
Most men might be self conscious about their size and most women try to hide their age. Panda’s, on the other hand, unknowingly and unwillingly reveal this information to the opposite sex. A study done on nine female and nine male pandas, ages 6 to 21 revealed that “bleats” used during the breeding season, send out a lot of information about an individual. First, it was found that there are definite masculine and feminine differences between the voices of males and females. Second, it was discovered that the bleats could reveal information about the size and bodyweight of a male. This is beneficial to females trying to choose a strong and healthy mate and also beneficial to males who can avoid a confrontation with a larger and more dangerous male. Third, if was found that females voices change as they age which allows males to gain knowledge of the approximate age of the female. Males would prefer an older female who has experience giving birth and raising young so this information is very important for the males to obtain if they wish to produce successful offspring.
Source:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/09/14/panda-calls.html
By Meghan Nichols
Really interesting! Just wondering: do the calls of the males change if they lose or gain weight? Or is it fixed when they are full grown?
ReplyDelete-Alex Sprague
Yeah alex brings up a good point. I thought this was overall very interesting. It seems like thats the classic way males attract mates by their body weight, but was cool was that the females voices change kind of like human females. I wonder if the males voice changes if there is an influx of testosterone like human males.
ReplyDelete-Katie Cyr
Not knowing too much about pandas, it's amazing to see that they possess such a vast vocabulary used for communicating. I'm wondering what aspect of their "bleats" are more favorable than others, like how female birds choose their mates based on "sexy" features in male bird calls.
ReplyDelete-Kevin Tse
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting. I knew that Pandas had a variety of communication but the size and age preferences was surprising in the sense that it is communicated instead of visual. What I wonder is, the article mentions how males like experienced females who have given birth before, if that was the preference, and evolution supports females who have given birth, how many inexperienced females end up not reproducing?
ReplyDeletePosted By Vince Tieu
I did not know that Pandas had an extensive vocabulary. I think the most interesting fact in this article was that the females voices change as they age. Like Katie mentioned with the male calls and testosterone, I wonder if the voice change in the females has a chemical connection. I bet the young females still mate but they don't have much of a choice of who will mate with them.
ReplyDeletePosted by Amber Kapchinske
I didn't know that bears could comminicate with such complex signals. I wonder if these kind of signals play a role in how difficult it is to get pandas to mate in captivity.
ReplyDeletePosted by- Charles Carville
I feel as though this is how most species communicate. By expressing these certain aspects of their genetics they are in effect telling mates how naturally fit they are and if they have good genes. Where this can be unfortunate for individuals with bad genetics it is best for the survival of the whole species. I wonder if individuals can mimic having good genetics when they really don't.
ReplyDeletePatrick Salome
This study was done on pandas in captivity, and I wonder if there is a difference in the calls/bleats of pandas in the wild. I also wonder if there is any way that the pandas can modify their bleats in order to fool the recipient, for example, a younger female somehow imitating an older, more experienced female in order to have a better shot at mating with a male. Or a male making himself sound bigger and stronger to another male. Birds will sing the most complicated song that they can in order to impress females, does something similar happen with pandas?
ReplyDeletePosted by: Muriel Herd
This is pretty cool. Its really interesting to see that animals like this have such a big vocabulary. This is probably very beneficial when trying to attract a mate.
ReplyDeleteAlberto Suarez