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0 pointsKineticLensman5y ago0 comments

> A decade ago I remember reading that if you’re in the jungle and an apex predator is spotted, it gets relatively quiet, so from an evolutionary perspective quiet signals danger and induces stress. Sounds reasonable to me, can’t speak to how valid it is though.

Many animals will make alarm calls [0] when they sense a predator, sometimes in multi-species groups. A few animals have alarm calls specific to different types of predator such as leopards, snakes and eagles [0]. In my own garden, I can often tell when a cat has entered by the alarm calls emitted by blackbirds and sometimes even squirrels.

So I'm not sure about this quiet jungle thing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_signal#Vervet_monkeys

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tzs5y ago

> Many animals will make alarm calls [0] when they sense a predator, sometimes in multi-species groups.

Some animals have learned that other animals will respond to their alarm calls, and they can use this to scare away those other animals. Here's a bird doing that to get meerkats to run away, leaving the food they just dug up for the bird to take [0].

That isn't the only trick animals play on others with sound. Here's a Steller's jay mimicking the sound of a hawk, the scare other birds away from a feeder [2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEYCjJqr21A

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_lEBQtW46o

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