Animal Communication in the Wild

Slater, P.J.B.  Fifty years of bird song research: a case study in animal behavior (2003).  Animal Behaviour. (65) 633-639. Doi: 10.1006/anbe.2003.2051

The above journal article is from a well known journal called Animal Behaviour.  The article introduces the use of song in different species of birds as a form of communication in the wild.  The author of the research is a credible source of information.  P.J.B. Slater works in the School of Biology at the University of St. Andrews.  The research itself is from 2003, what I consider recent for the study of animals.  The purpose of the article is to inform on the communication capabilities of species outside of Homo sapien.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Cognition-Evolution-Behavior/dp/0230294235

Wynne, C.D.L. & Udell, M.A.R. (2013). Animal Cognition: Evolution, Behavior and Cognition.  New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.

 

Animal Cognition is an informative book written by Clive Wynne and Monique Udell.  Dr.  Wynne is a psychology professor at Arizona State University and is a specialist in dog behavior and cognition.  Monique Udell is an assistant professor in animal and rangeland sciences at Oregon State University.  This book is used as a text book in one of my psychology classes.  It contains many references to peer-reviewed research in the field of animal psychology.  There is a whole chapter dedicated to animal communication.

Since it is in print one of the disadvantages is its accessibility.  It may be found online but often times you must have a subscription service through a website that has PDF versions of prints.  The advantage to a book of this sort is its plethora of information from various sources.  Since it is very informative and does not serve a purpose of proving a specific point it is not very biased and provides many points for both sides of each topic.

 

The above video is clip from NOVA Sciencenow that I found on youtube.  It describes how honeybees do a “Waggle Dance” in order to communicate locations and distances to other bees.  They use this dance to tell where a great food source is or where a new potential hive is.  The video is from a documentary from a credible, well known source NOVA.  The work being described has been published and accepted by many in the science field.

A disadvantage of this source (youtube) is that you can not see the whole video and it has been a little difficult to find.  You also do not have access to the actual research that is being discussed.  The advantage is that the small amount of information is readily available and from a reliable source.

 

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/07/honey-bees-africa-animals-science-birds/

This link is to a news article from National Geographic about the reciprocal altruistic relationship between man and a bird called a Honeyguide.  National geographic is a well known credible source.  The article is very recent, from 2016.  All of the information used is hyper linked throughout the article so you have easy access to the original sources the information is from.  The purpose of the article is to inform their does not seem to be a clear bias.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/28/us/28marler.html

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/eth.12415

This is a link to an article with a collection of information regarding Peter Marler’s work with song birds.  This piece was published in Ethology: International Journal of Behavioral Ecology.  Marler spent decades researching the sounds songbirds make to communicate in the wild.  The review not only revisits Marler’s work but also follows up with more recent research done in these topics.  The article is from 2015.