Cryptic Communication in a Montane Nocturnal Haplorhine, Tarsius pumilus

Grow, Nanda

doi:10.1159/000497427

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Hence, a somewhat surprising finding was that subjects remained mostly silent to others' predator songs, despite showing strong anti-predator behaviour (males and females appeared to behave in the same way, i.e., ground scanning, vigilance, defecation). The lack of vocal response may be part of a cryptic strategy to conceal the group's location when a dangerous stalking predator is presumed in the vicinity (Aguilar de Soto et al, 2012;Grow, 2019). However, this does not explain why 1 of 6 target groups and two distant groups still responded with predator songs to the playbacks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Peer Review #2 of "White-handed gibbons discriminate context-specific song compositions (v0.1)"

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

White-handed gibbons produce loud and acoustically complex songs when interacting with their neighbours or when encountering predators. In both contexts, songs are assembled from a small number of units although their composition differs in context-specific ways. Here, we investigated whether wild gibbons could infer the 'meaning' when hearing exemplars recorded in both contexts (i.e. 'duet songs' vs. 'predator songs').We carried out a playback experiment by which we simulated the presence of a neighbouring group producing either its duet or a predator song in order to compare subjects' vocal and locomotor responses. When hearing a recording of a duet song, subjects reliably responded with their own duet song, which sometimes elicited further duet songs in adjacent groups. When hearing a recording of a predator song, however, subjects typically remained silent, apart from one of six groups who replied with its own predator song. Moreover, in two of six trials, playbacks of predator songs elicited predator song replies in non-adjacent groups. Finally, all groups showed strong anti-predator behaviour to predator songs but never to duet songs. We concluded that white-handed gibbons discriminated between the two song types and were able to infer meaning from them. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of the current debate on the evolutionary origins of syntax.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Peer Review #2 of "White-handed gibbons discriminate context-specific song compositions (v0.1)"

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…ground scanning, vigilance, defaecation). The lack of vocal response may be part of a cryptic strategy to conceal the group's location when a dangerous stalking predator is presumed in the vicinity (Aguilar de Soto et al, 2012;Grow, 2019). However, this does not explain why 1 of 6 target groups and two distant groups still responded with predator songs to the playbacks.…”

Section: Singing As Anti-predator Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 98%

White-handed gibbons discriminate context-specific song compositions

Andrieu

Penny

Bouchet

et al. 2020

PeerJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

White-handed gibbons produce loud and acoustically complex songs when interacting with their neighbours or when encountering predators. In both contexts, songs are assembled from a small number of units although their composition differs in context-specific ways. Here, we investigated whether wild gibbons could infer the ‘meaning’ when hearing exemplars recorded in both contexts (i.e. ‘duet songs’ vs. ‘predator songs’). We carried out a playback experiment by which we simulated the presence of a neighbouring group producing either its duet or a predator song in order to compare subjects’ vocal and locomotor responses. When hearing a recording of a duet song, subjects reliably responded with their own duet song, which sometimes elicited further duet songs in adjacent groups. When hearing a recording of a predator song, however, subjects typically remained silent, apart from one of six groups which replied with its own predator song. Moreover, in two of six trials, playbacks of predator songs elicited predator song replies in non-adjacent groups. Finally, all groups showed strong anti-predator behaviour to predator songs but never to duet songs. We concluded that white-handed gibbons discriminated between the two song types and were able to infer meaning from them. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of the current debate on the evolutionary origins of syntax.

show abstract

“…We found mention of solos in only two species (Tab. SM1), while duets in pygmy tarsier (T. pumilus) consist of "any call, where the male and female vocalize in synchrony" (Grow 2019). Even if there are indications that, in gen. Tarsius, all adults, and some sub-adults can join the duet song of the pair, creating a family chorus (Groves & Shekelle 2010; Gursky 2015), we found reports of chorusing behavior only on 35.7% (5 species out of 14) of the Tarsiidae.…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Notes on a tree: reframing the relevance of primate choruses, duets, and solo songs

Gregorio

Carugati

Valente

et al. 2022

Ethology Ecology & Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The complexity of primates' singing behavior has long gathered the attention of researchers interested in understanding the selective pressures underpinning the evolution of language. Among these pressures, a link between territoriality, pair-living, and singing displays has been suggested.Historically, singing primates have been found in a few taxa that are not closely related to each other, and, in the last years, their phylogeny has dramatically changed. Hence, we aimed at understanding if the dogmatic association between territorial behavior and a monogamous social structure still holds in the light of current research. Moreover, singing behavior has often been considered a whole, but animals can perform different singing forms depending on how many individuals call simultaneously. Currently, it is unclear to which extent these singing forms are widespread among these primate groups. Given that there is no unique definition for a song, solo, duet, and chorus, we envisioned some of the most used descriptions. We then formulated some new definitions that we followed in our review of the presence/absence of these different forms of song organization among singing primates' taxa. In particular, we suggested that tarsier species that are typically considered non-singers may indeed sing, and we pointed out that non-duetting gibbons may perform duet interactions. We found that, besides duets, chorusing behavior and solo songs are essential features of primates' communication, but their study is still in a descriptive phase. Moreover, while territorial behavior seems to be conserved in these singing taxa, we highlighted that the monogamous social structure is not the rule. Pair-living plus multifemales groups displaying singing behavior are common too. We suggest that ending to consider these taxa as uniform in their sociality and vocal behavior might be a significant turning point to unravel the different selective pressures that influenced the emergence and organization of such peculiar vocal behavior.

show abstract

Cryptic Communication in a Montane Nocturnal Haplorhine, Tarsius pumilus

Cited by 8 publications

References 37 publications

Peer Review #2 of "White-handed gibbons discriminate context-specific song compositions (v0.1)"

Peer Review #2 of "White-handed gibbons discriminate context-specific song compositions (v0.1)"

White-handed gibbons discriminate context-specific song compositions

Notes on a tree: reframing the relevance of primate choruses, duets, and solo songs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About