Animals use a variety of signals to communicate.  These are often honest and convey important messages, however, (subject to constraints) some species use deception to exploit honest communications. 

It has been shown that species that use a single inflexible deception signal are only successful in the presence of abundant honest counterparts.  

Scientists investigated if there would be such limitations with a more flexible deception by using the fork-tailed drongo, which is known to mimic alarm calls of other species to steal food.

 Researchers tested 2 hypotheses:

1. Drongos use vocal mimicry to vary their false alarm calls to steal more food and repeatedly do so without losing effectiveness
2. They specifically mimic the calls of the species they are trying to steal from to increase response

Research was conducted in the Kalahari Desert on native drongos. The birds were found to spend 25% of their time following targeted foraging species and stolen food made up 23% of their diet. Alarm calls were produced when a valuable food item was found.

Their success appears to be the result of producing a combination of honest and false alarm calls, with many foraging species relaxing vigilance in the presences of drongo sentries. 

Recordings indicated that drongos can mimic 51 different alarm call types, using false calls 69% of the time. They often mimic the specific alarm call of the target species to cause fleeing behaviour (presenting a theft opportunity) and change the alarm call type 74 % of the time when a previous attempt was not successful. 

The work shows that flexible deception does present a greater advantage than inflexible deception. 

Summarised paper -Deception by Flexible Alarm Mimicry in an African Bird by Flower et al.

A new mathematical model has been developed by researchers to better understand Narwhal behaviour, decerning patterns in seemingly chaotic movement. The narwhal (Monodon monoceros) is a small whale that inhabits the artic ocean, known to take long deep dives of more than 1,800 metres below sea level. However, any understanding of this behaviour has always eluded scientists until now. 

The movements of a pod of satellite-tagged narwhals over 83 days was analysed using a maths-based model that uses chaos theory to find patterns in irregular and complex movements. Findings showed that narwhals tend to take infrequent deeper dives around solar noon and rapid shallower and more intense dives at night. This is potentially due to nocturnal hunting of squid, who come closer to the surface at night, and resting behaviour during the day.  

Findings also linked deeper and more intense dives to the presence of sea ice, which has already been strongly associated with narwhal life cycles as both hunting grounds and places of refuge. 

Narwhals are considered to be some of the mostly highly threatened animals in the artic due to a variety of human activities such as hunting, climate change, and noise pollution associated with oil and gas mining. The effect of climate change being particularly pronounced due to the loss of sea ice where narwhals hunt and take refuge, which NASA reports is shrinking by 13% per decade.

This model has further applications in the better understanding of other complex animal behaviour and the challenges these species face, particularly those under significant threat from climate change and human activity, as the narwhal is. Researchers intend for this new method of mapping and labelling long term data on behaviour to help inform policy to help protect endangered species.  

Orignal article by Liz Kimbrough.

Find the link to the original article here: https://news.mongabay.com/2022/09/the-mystery-of-narwhal-behavior-arctic-climate-change/

OOOO first post, how exciting!

My name is Emma, I’m a 3rd year biology student with a keen love for ecology. I’m here to help translate some of the more complicated bits of biology for all! (With the odd bit of chemistry thrown in.)

I’ll mainly be doing articles from published papers but I can take requests on subjects too.

Please bare with me as I get used to this!

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