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Science Quickly

Bird Combines Calls in Specific Order

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2016

⏱️ 2 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Japanese great tit combines two calls in a specific order and does not respond to a recording of the calls combined in reverse order, apparently demonstrating compositional syntax. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

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0:11.0

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0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

0:22.7

.j.p. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J.P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:33.5

This is Scientific American 60-second science. I'm D Duranis Appellowitz. Got a minute?

0:39.5

Humans have always considered themselves special compared with other animals. One reason is the

0:44.2

complexity of our language, bounded by unique rules such as syntax, where we string words together

0:49.3

in a specific order to create meaningful sentences. But it turns out a bird may also vocalize with syntax rules.

0:56.5

The Japanese Great Tit, a bird that's a close relative of North America's very own chickadee.

1:01.5

Toshitaka Suzuki, of Japan's graduate university for advanced studies, has been listening

1:05.9

to the calls of the Japanese Great Tit for the past decade.

1:09.1

Suzuki has recorded at least 10 alarm calls used by the

1:11.8

bird. These include, known as the ABC call, which alerts other great tits to the presence of a predator,

1:18.4

and the D call, which signals the birds to approach the caller. Now Suzuki and his colleagues have found

1:25.4

that the great tit uses those calls together to deliver

1:28.3

both messages to other birds, and they found that the order of that call was essential.

1:33.0

Only ABCD made sense to the birds.

1:37.9

When the scientists intentionally reversed the order to create a D-A-B-C call, the birds did not

1:43.9

respond. The study is in the journal Nature

1:46.2

Communications. I think the really interesting thing is why the order matters. And figuring

1:51.8

it out out, I think, will be difficult, but also potentially really, really interesting, because it will

...

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