Slobodchikoff: Experimental And Naturalistic Observation

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For over 30 years Professor Slobodchikoff from the Biology Department of Northern Arizona University and his colleagues have been recording calls of various species of prairie dogs. Prof. Slobodchikoff using both experimental and naturalistic observation in labs and in nature has been able to prove that prairie dogs have different dialects, languages between species, and each call is similar to a sentence including nouns and verbs. “Prairie dogs have the most complex natural language that has been decoded so far. They have words for different predators, they have descriptive words for describing the individual features of different predators, so it's a pretty complex language that has a lot of elements," says Prof. Slobodchikoff.” The team observes the behavior of the colony when a predator approaches, recording the reaction of the colony both the acoustics and the escape response. Then using this information they will go back to the colony with no predator present and play back the pre-recorded calls of certain predator. The reaction to each predator is different, when the colony was presented with the badger alert they reacted as they would if there…show more content…
They make many other chatter sounds between each other but the context is unknown and sometimes there is no behavior associated with the chatter making the context undeterminable. This is fascinating research and I am glad it is being conducted. I chose the prairie dog because I knew very little about them. From what I have learned about the prairie dogs I believe that they do indeed have their own language system. i Walker, Matt. "BBC - Earth News - Burrowing US Prairie Dogs Use Complex Language." BBC News - Home. Web. 07 June 2011. . ii "Prairie Dog Coalition - Research, Publications and Maps." Prairie Dog Coalition - for the Life of the Prairie. Web. 07 June 2011.

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