Language & Communication

Language & Communication, Self-awareness, Theory of Mind

Can Crows Read Signs?

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Can crows read signs?

Wild crows were stealing insulation—to use in their nests—from a construction site on the campus of the International Coastal Research Center (ICRC) in Otsuchi, Japan.

The staff at the research center asked Tsutomu Takeda, a crow expert at Utsunomiya University, for advice. Takeda suggested they hang paper signs that read “crows do not enter.” (No, he wasn’t joking.) The crows immediately stopped stealing the insulation and have refrained for two years now.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the crows can read Japanese, but it raises some intriguing questions. Studies have shown that crows pay attention to human behavior and adjust their own in response. So it’s possible that the signs—which cause people to look up and then look around for crows—makes the crows nervous and they decided it’s no longer safe to steal the insulation. So while the clever corvids are not reading the words (at least we don’t think they are!), they may nonetheless be reading the behavioral signs of the humans on campus.

Read the full story on The Asahi Shimbun’s website.

Language & Communication, Laughter & Humor

Contagious Laughter in Keas

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According to a study published in New Scientist, wild keas—a type of large parrot—can “catch” a laugh. Just like humans, they experience contagious laughter.

When exposed to a recording of the warble-like sound these birds make when playing, their moods changed. They became playful and soared after one another in aerobatic loops, exchanged foot-kicking high fives in mid-air, and tossed objects to one other, in what appeared to be emotionally contagious behaviour. And when the recording stopped, the birds settled back into sobriety and return to whatever they had been doing before hearing the “canned laughter.” Read more here.

Language & Communication

Hush Little Humpback. . .

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We might not be able to hear them without the use of sophisticated technology, but humpback whales are loud. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to this recording:

They call to one another to gather in groups and males sing their hearts out to attract females. So after decades of listening to and studying their songs and other vocalizations, scientists were surprised to learn that these whales sometimes “whisper.”

Humpbacks migrate long distances between foraging and breeding grounds and sometimes the moms don’t get much time in the “nursery.” While in their breeding grounds, pregnant females need to be efficient about giving birth and adequately nursing their calves so that they are strong enough to tolerate the long return migration to their foraging grounds. Scientists didn’t know much about the nursing behavior of cetaceans, so Simone K. A. Videsen and colleagues decided to investigate.

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Language & Communication

Cursing in the Wild, Singing Pavarotti and Heavy Metal in Captivity

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What happens when captive talking birds, such as parrots and cockatoos, escape and return to the wild? They start teaching their new wild bird buddies some of the words they learned while hanging out with humans, including the naughty ones. Swearing parrots are nothing new. Parrots are mimics and when kept in captivity they often learn to repeat the words they hear, even the kind their human family didn’t intend for them to learn.

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Friendship & Affection, Language & Communication

Interspecies Friendship at Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary

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Interspecies friendship raises intriguing questions about animal communication, such as how do different species learn to read one another’s signals and become friends? After all, many examples of friendships that cross the species divide involve animals with very different behaviors that arose from adaptations to diverse habitats.

Though interspecies friendship occasionally happens in the wild, it seems to be far more common when species are raised together in captivity. When housed together—whether in farms, sanctuaries, zoos, aquaria, or our homes—animals belonging to different species sometimes develop a common language that they use to establish the rules of their interactions, such as how to play together, when to give give each other space, and when it’s okay to snuggle. And then friendships develop.

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