Prairie dogs chat with advanced 'language'

On first appearances they seem to be little more than a kind of nervous ground squirrel with a loud squeak, but new research is revealing that prairie dogs are in fact some of nature's most talkative creatures. Biologists studying the burrowing rodents have found that they have one of the most sophisticated languages in the animal kingdom – second only to humans.

The findings have surprised many wildlife experts as it was assumed that mankind's closest relatives, primates, or intelligent mammals such as dolphins were likely to be the most talkative species after humans.

But Professor Con Slobodchikoff, a biologist at Northern Arizona University, has discovered that the prairie dogs' squeaky bark contains surprising amounts of information that can describe colours, size, directions of travel and even speed. He first discovered the animals' ability to communicate by studying the alarm calls they make when predators enter their territories.



Prairie dogs are highly social and live in large colonies, or towns as they are known, that can span hundreds of acres of the grasslands of North America. They use loud panic calls to alert other members of the colony of a threat.

Professor Slobodchikoff found that the prairie dogs used specific calls for different types of predator. "There is quite a lot of variation between the alarm calls used by prairie dogs," he said. "The call for a coyote is different from that for a badger which is also different for the call for a hawk.

"This makes sense because the prairie dogs have different evasion responses for each type of predator. Coyotes, for example, hunt by surprise so the prairie dogs run to the entrances of their burrows and stand up to keep watch for the threat."