The study, headed by researcher Simon Townsend from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, has found that Meerkats use specific calls to alert each other of who's around. These calls are used when foraging for food, alerting better foragers to come, or to avoid more dominant members of the group. As Townsend states,
Meerkats do have individualized relationships with one another. They are
cooperative breeding species, so they have to coordinate activities in the
group.
In order to test the discovery, Townsend's team recorded calls from several Meerkats and then played them in the wild around a group of foraging members. To test the group further, Townsend's team attempted to trick the group by playing a recording of one Meerkat's call to one side of the group, and then playing the same call on the opposite side a few seconds later, a move that would be impossible for a normal Meerkat to make. Says Townsend,
Instead of finding a specific social context, we just mimmicked a sociallyPlaying the same call on opposite sides seemed to confuse the Meerkats, an indication that the Meerkats recognized the call as coming from the same individual, but realizing it being physically possible for the individual to travel such a distance in such a short period of time.
plausible and socially implausible scenario.
So, it would seem Meerkats can now add their names to the list of animals who can pick out each other in a crowd. This list also includes wasps (recognize each other by color variations) and sperm whales, whom have individual accents.
This information comes from the article Calling Card: Meerkats Can Identify Another by Voice Alone, written by Jennifer Welsh on October 12, 2011 on livescience.com. The link to the article is as follows:
http://www.livescience.com/16499-meerkats-recognize-individual-voices.html
Posted by Austin Gray (2)
Meerkats are very social animals. When feeding, they have that staggered vigilance, like mentioned in the JWatcher manual. They also have abilities of discrimination like birds. I believe all animals have at least some basic form of communication. Animals like meerkats are ones higher up in that line. P.S. I didn't know Timon was a meerkat!
ReplyDeletePosted by Michael Shi
Meerkat colonies are very social and depend completely on communication. Living in Africa is no easy task for such a small animal and meerkats survive because they are skilled at communication. Meerkats have calls to warn each other of predators, to defend their territory from other colonies, and to keep track of their young. The message itself is crucial to meerkat survival and I think this post is cool because I never thought about whether the sender mattered or not. I would be interested to know what about a meerkat's call makes it distinct from others and what this advantage would be. Does recognizing an individuals voice add to a hierarchy? Would one meerkat's calls be answered over another individuals?
ReplyDeletePosted by Suzanne Sullivan
Love the inspiration for this post, such an excellent movie! I remember seeing Meerkats at the San Diego Zoo over the summer. As well as being social creatures they seem to also not be bothered by people, but I am not sure if that was just because they are used to people being in a zoo. Did you know they also have a very wide vocabulary? Also, just like cats and dogs they use scents to mark territories/communicate. Have there been any studies on whether they can determine other Meerkats based on scents or is it just calls they recognize?
ReplyDeletePosted by Caitlin Descovich O'Hare
Until reading this post, I had no idea that Meerkats could make these vocal distinctions. Yet I wonder if this evolved because of the type of colony they live in. Since Meerkats have established roles such as hunters, lookouts, and babysitters, being able to tell who is producing the calls and what role they have in the colony would make communication among them much easier. This post reminds me of a show on Animal Plant called Meerkat Manor, which filmed the daily life of a particular colony. If you have an interest in the animal, you should check it out! Although it's no Lion King, it's a quite interesting show.
ReplyDeletePosted by Sara Corey
I knew meerkats were social creatures but I had no clue they had this much of a high level of communication. Being able to recognize another individuals voice would be especially useful to a pack animal like this, to keep track of their own children amongst the pack as well as differentiate between their own pack and another. It is especially interesting that they are smart enough to realize something is wrong when the voice moves more quickly than should be possible
ReplyDelete-Rhys Ursuliak
Have you ever watched Meerkat Manor? It is a series on Animal Planet that follows, I believe, up to four Meerkat families and their every day lives. I really enjoy this series because the scientists use cameras all over the burrows and places of forage to show the meerkats' behaviors. I find your article to be extremely interesting because on this show, that I can remember, they never mentioned the meerkats could identify each other individually by call. That is very fascinating. I wonder what other species does this?
ReplyDeletePosted by: Em Arsenault
Hello all, nice to see so many people commented on my post! In order to be fair to all my commenters, I shall make some replies to the various posts. First off, yes: Timon is a meerkat. I believe in the later movies (those straight to video...) I believe Timon returns home to his family, and they showcase some of the behaviors of the meerkats (living in big families, living in underground tunnels, their signiture standing pose). Second, as a meerkat's call can help in avoiding more dominant members, so I believe group members over time begin to recognize whose calls belong to the senoir dominant members, establishing a hierarchy. Third, I haven't done any additional research on meerkat communication (possibly my next post!), but I didn't know they had their own vocabulary. Fourth, I did mention at the end of my post that other animals can recognize each other by call, such as sperm whales, who apparently have accents. Finally, yes everyone I have heard of Meerkat Manor, but I unfortunately have yet to watch it. Does anyone know if they still play it?
ReplyDeleteAgain, thank you for all the comments!
Response posted by Austin Gray (2)
This is a very interesting post. I understand that the meerkat had the ability to understand that he was hearing the same voice from two directions and this confused him, but does this mean that he can actually connect a certain voice with a certain body? Maybe he is so used to hearing different vocals coming from different directions, because he is able to sense the difference in the vocals of each individual, but from my understanding there is a conflicting variable in this study. This interests me and makes me want to read more about meerkats!
ReplyDeletePosted by Abbie Saranteas
Great article. I am fascinated that humans are not the only species that can differentiate certain members of the population by listening to their vocals. Koala's are also another type of species which can signal and pick up different individuals of the group making the communication more in depth. I wonder if there are any other types of animals that we do not know of yet that can differentiate individuals of a population based on these vocals.
ReplyDeleteKoala bear article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3102089/
Posted by Ryan Dulmaine