Chomsky has dismissed efforts to teach apes like Koko how to sign as revealing nothing about the antecedents of human language. But now we know better. According to David Shariatmadari there are several reasons: A team of researchers in Florida recently set out to record the “acoustic behaviour” of bottlenose dolphins while they completed a difficult […]
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 […]
It is often thought that memory is the key to advanced language and that most non-human species do not have it. It is in this way we speak about the goldfish. But just as the goldfish, most animals have much better memory than humans and thus a better capacity for advanced language. One telling example […]
Chemical signals are the primary language used by ocean organisms, writes Cheryln Dybas at NFS. Using a kind of extra-sensory perception (ESP) of the deep, marine animals and plants react to other species and to their environment based on these cues. Humans are poorly designed to understand such chemically-driven interactions “because we sense the world primarily via visual […]
Two types of fish—grouper and coral trout—can use sign language to communicate about their experiences. A study published in Nature Communications discovered that the fish are able to “point” at the phenomena they have in mind. After studying gesturing grouper in the wild, researchers found that when the prey fish escaped the hunting alliance, a […]
The vivid colours of coral reef fishes represent a language that dates back at least 50 million years but is still baffling to humans in many respects, a leading fish expert concedes today. Colour in fish is probably a highly developed form of communication, some of which we can interpret, but much of which remains […]
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 […]
Interspecies Communication Inc. administers a research program that gives creative people the opportunity to interact directly with wild animals and habitat through music, art, and ceremony. ICI is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit, founded in 1978 to promote a better understanding of what is, and what can be communicated between human beings and other animals. Their methods focus […]