Survival & reproduction
- Animals are more hard-wired for survival than human beings are
- Animals have to rely on and be guided by their instincts: they are not able to reason, reflect, or make considered decisions in the same way that human beings can
- Animal communication is entirely sense-based (due to the lack of a more sophisticated communication system) and falls into four main types:
- Visual (sight)
- Auditory (hearing)
- Olfactory (smell, taste)
- Tactile (touch)
Animal survival communication
- Alarm signals are given off by animals to promote survival by allowing conspecifics to escape from a predator
- A downside of the alarm call signal is that it also works as a signal to the predator that prey is close at hand and may thus decrease their (the prey’s) chances of survival
- Some examples include:
- Blackbirds (and many other animals and birds) emit a shrill alarm call to signal to others that a predator is nearby
- Vervet monkeys produce acoustically distinct calls to distinguish different predators i.e. a specific call linked to either pythons, eagles, leopards or baboons
- Some animals, like fish and insects, may use non-auditory signals e.g. the white tail flashes of deer may be an alarm signal to warn other deer of a nearby predator
Alarm signal diagram
An alarm signal is a non-auditory signal that a predator is near
Animal reproduction communication
- Display signals are used by an animal to show off the reproductive advantages of mating with them, to conspecifics (i.e. ‘look at me, I’m awesome’)
- Some tree frogs croak songs to attract mates
- The most popular males produce offspring that are faster and larger than the offspring of less popular males
- Female guppy fish prefer males with brighter orange spots on their body because it means they are better at finding high-quality food than those with less bright spots
- Male peacocks show off their dazzling array of coloured feathers to females
- Jumping spiders perform complicated dances in which they wave their legs and vibrate their bodies
- Male pipefish (a type of seahorse) prefer females with more dramatic-looking stripes on their body
- Some tree frogs croak songs to attract mates
Animal reproduction communication diagram
The female pipefish with their dramatic striped display to attract a mate