Chestnut-crowned babbler: Australian bird becomes first known non-human species to communicate using language
No, this story is not about aliens but about how a small gregarious bird that lives in the Australian outback has been found to communicate with one another using a simple form of language – the first species other than humans known to do so.
The Outback is the vast, remote, arid interior of Australia - here you can see across sand plains and salt pans to Mount Connor, Central Australia
Scientists studying the vocal noises made by the chestnut-crowned babbler have shown that it uses combinations of different sounds that on their own are meaningless but when combined convey a certain message to other members of the species.
Adult chestnut-crowned babblers - babblers are renowned for their cheerful, energetic, social behavior
Although bird songs are known to have different meanings, scientists have not been able to show until now that individual messages can be made using different combinations of the same sounds, much like individual sounds that make up human words.
Experiments showed that the babblers re-use two sounds “A” and “B”, in different arrangements to communicate. When they are emitting a flight call – a vocalization made by birds during flight, usually to keep the flock together – they use AB, and when they are feeding chicks, they use BAB. Listening birds are capable of picking up the difference, and can be affected whether they hear AB or BAB.
Lesser flamingoes flying in formation, using flight calls, which are vocalisations made by birds while flying, which often serve to keep flocks together
Said one of the researchers,
“In contrast to most song birds, chestnut-crowned babblers do not sing. Instead its extensive vocal repertoire is characterised by discrete calls made up of smaller acoustically distinct individual sounds.”
Scientists think that babblers may choose to rearrange sounds to form new meanings because doing so by combining two existing sounds is quicker than coming up with a new sound altogether.
Typical chestnut-crowned babbler habitat, Gluepot Reserve, South Australia
(All images - credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)
