Phytosemiotics

Phytosemiotics is the study of the language of non-animal beings. In an excellent article from 2000 professor Kalevi Kull from University of Tartu (Estonia) explains the biosemiotic background of recent developments in the field. Abstract: “Asking, whether plants have semiosis, the article gives a review of the works on phytosemiotics, referring to the tradition in […]

Is it their turn to speak?

Jenny Animal Linguist is a promising scholar in the emerging field of Animal Linguistics. Follow her progress on Twitter, @AnimalLinguist, and support her work – which she herself characterizes in these terms: “It is my goal to bring Animal Communication to the fore as a distinct field of research, and especially within Linguistics – so far, […]

Anthropobelugian

Millions of years before we humans came along, the earth’s oceans were a vast, unbroken web of whale song. The complex courting arias of humpbacks, the distinct clicking dialects of migrating sperm-whale clans, the congalike poundings of Pacific grays, the multi-thousand-mile moans and blips of massive blue and fin whales conversing across oceans at octaves […]

The Call of a Stinging Nettle

According to swedish Artist Christine Ödlund, when a plant reacts to a butterfly larvae feeding on its leaves, it releases chemical substances, or compounds. In collaboration with the Ecological Chemistry Research Group at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the characteristics of these compounds are here analyzed, transposed into amplitude and intensity of sinus tones and recorded […]

The Voices of Fish

Fish communicate with sound, movement and electric waves. Their semantic sensory perception is extraordinary and complex. It takes some good amount of imagination to understand it. The lateral line is the main sensory organ of fish. This organ not only captures sounds, it can also sense tremors and currents. This line system, which detects gentle […]