Interspecies communication
Although researchers have explored the topic for many years, only recently has interspecies communication been recognized as an established field of inquiry.
In 1985, using lexigram symbols, a keyboard and monitor, and other computer technology, Savage-Rumbaugh began her groundbreaking work with Kanzi, a male bonobo (P. paniscus).
[citation needed] Koko, a lowland gorilla, began learning a modified American Sign Language as an infant, when Francine "Penny" Patterson, PhD, started working with her in 1975.
[2] However, scientific consensus is that Koko did not demonstrate a true understanding of language, due to a lack of regard for syntax or grammar.
[5] Researchers have determined that bird species are able to understand, or at least respond, to alarms calls by species of mammals and vice versa; red squirrels' acoustic response to raptors is near-identical to that of birds, making the latter also aware to a potential predatory threat, while eastern chipmunks are keen to mobbing calls by eastern tufted titmice.
In 2000 it was found that age and interspecies experience were important factors in the ability for bonnet macaques to recognize heterospecific calls.
Interspecies communication may not be an innate ability but rather a sort of imprinting coupled with an intense emotion (fear) early in life.
For example, Owen and Mzee, the odd couple of an orphaned baby hippopotamus and a 130-year-old Aldabran tortoise, display this relationship rarely seen in the animal world.
[9] Since chickadees and nuthatches typically occupy the same habitat, mobbing predators together acts as a deterrent that benefits both species.
[10] Blue and great tits compete for resources such as food and nesting cavities and their coexistence has important fitness consequences for both species.
When physically disturbed, Lepidoptera larvae produce a clicking noise with their mandibles followed by an unpalatable oral secretion.
[14] Scientists believe this to be “acoustic aposematism” which has only been previously found in a controlled study with bats and tiger moths.
Others alter the allomones to form pheromones or other hormones, and yet others adopt them into their own defensive strategies, for example by regurgitating them when attacked by an insectivorous insect.
In this true mutualistic inter-relationship, both organisms gain benefits in their respective sexual reproductive systems – i.e. orchid flowers are pollinated and the Dacini fruit fly males are rewarded with a sex pheromone precursor or booster.
The floral synomone, also acts as a reward to pollinators, is either in the form of a phenylpropanoid (e.g. methyl eugenol[25][26][27]) or a phenylbutanoid (e.g. raspberry ketone[28] and zingerone[29][30]).
[31][32] A follow-up workshop to review progress and plan future activities occurred in 2019 and was co-hosted by MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, Google, and the Jeremy Coller Foundation.
