Humans aren’t the only ones who “talk” to each other
Here in America, it’s election time again. If you think about it, elections are all about communication and the process of getting your message across to as many people as possible. Whether or not people respond positively to that message is another story.
While watching a recent debate, which included language and posturing that might normally be reserved for closing time at your local bar, I was struck by how similar we still are to the animals we pretend not to be related to. While we like to believe we’re the only species that “talks”, other animals actually have pretty complex communication systems of their own. So, let’s look at some.
I’d wager that the non-human communication system you are most familiar with is “Bird Song”. Every species of bird seems to have its own songbook and those songs change from season to season (though roosters seem to have just that one song they play over and over, like a one-hit wonder band at Riverbend). Beyond song, some species of birds also use dance and plumage displays to communicate with potential mates or to appear bigger to scare away predators.
Another species that communicates very effectively are ants. But ant communication is very strange compared to human communication. While ants do use sounds and touch to a small degree, their main method of communication is via smell. You might already know that ants use pheromones to lay down trails that lead to food, but they use them for other tasks too. A crushed ant for example, will give off a warning pheromone that tells other members of the colony to beware. There’s even a pheromone that Queens produce that tell her workers that she’s still capable of being Queen. When she stops producing it, the workers know it’s time to start raising new Queens.
While there is evidence that bees also use smells for some aspects of communication, their main language is the “waggle” dance, so called because they “waggle” their abdomens during this dance. When a bee finds a new source of food, they will communicate the location to their hive mates via the dance. Scientists since Aristotle have been studying bee’s dance language, and have determined that the moves in the dance give directions to food relative to the position of the Sun to the hive. (Yes. The bees are doing geometry!)
Moving from the land to the sea, I’d guess that we’re all familiar with the basics of how dolphins communicate: Clicks and whistles. The clicks are used for echo-location of prey and obstacles in the water, while the whistles seem to be for conveying short bursts of information. In fact, every dolphin has its own unique “signature whistle”, which for lack of a better analogy is that dolphin’s name. A lot of research has been done over the years on human to dolphin communication but, so far, no breakthrough has been made that lets us really communicate with them.
Dolphins are great and all, but, what about lobsters? How do lobsters communicate? Well, like a lot of creatures, lobsters use scents and smells to communicate.
Well, that’s it for this month…oh. You want to know how lobsters use smells to communicate?
Ah. Well, you see, they have, um, urine bladders. On their heads. Yes. And, when they want to “speak” to each other, they will…discharge…long streams (between one and two meters) of urine at each other’s faces.
For example, when a female is interested in mating with a male, she will literally pee in his face. He will “smell” that it’s a female peeing on him and become less aggressive. This is good, because, as a rule, lobsters are jerks. Properly aroused, the lobster’s magic happens.
Male lobsters will also pee on each other as they try to establish dominance and…oh, wow. I really hope Donald Trump doesn’t read this column.
Steven Disbrow is a computer programmer who specializes in e-commerce and mobile systems development, an entrepreneur, comic-book nerd, writer, improviser, actor, sometime television personality and parent of two human children.
Photo by Monique Stowasser