The More the Scarier: Adult Richardson’s Ground Squirrels (Spermophilus richardsonii) Assess Response Urgency Via the Number of Alarm Signallers

摘要: Richardson’s ground squirrels (RGS) produce alarm calls that warn conspecifics of potential predators. We presented free-living adult and juvenile RGS with playbacks repetitive from one vs. two callers broadcast sequentially through spatially separated loudspeakers. Adult spent a greater proportion time vigilant in response to calling squirrel, whereas did not respond differentially caller. Apparently then, the relative inexperience context which such are emitted precludes their enumeration callers. Taken together our earlier finding but ignore information regarding urgency encoded rate produced calls, present results suggest developmental shift response-urgency perception. selectively extract via discrimination number callers, ignoring less reliable issued by inexperienced signallers.