American owls overhear prairie dogs - newspaper Evening Moscow

Rodents, speak complex languages, birds warn of approaching danger.

North American owls rabbit , which often make their home on the outskirts of settlements prairie dogs overhear conversations of their neighbors rodents. Owls do not do it for curiosity, but for their own safety.

Scientists from the University of Colorado found that prairie dogs with special “words” transmit signals to each other about approaching snakes . Eavesdropping dogs, owls receive important information about the impending danger. Although reptiles predators in most cases do not pose a threat to adult birds, they can destroy the owl eggs, ruining the nest.

Prairie dogs , who, unwittingly, help neighbors, speak a complex language with the rudiments of grammar . Scientists have found that in their lexicon has independent parts of speech – nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs . With words of rodents squirrel family can describe approaching a living creature or object in detail. For example, scientists have found that person in a blue T-shirt with long sleeves they react differently than a man in a gray T-shirt with short sleeves. In the case of snakes, dogs stand on their hind legs and closely examine the terrain. If a predator approaches, rodents attack him.

Owls , which also have their own language, not react to all the sounds, namely those signals danger . Study leader Rebecca Brown said that scientists have conducted a kind of test, studying the reaction of the birds on barking dogs, mooing cows, and the sound of low-flying aircraft. It turned out that it cries dogs make owls react particularly active – birds tremble, rotating head and pressed to the ground.

conclusions that scientists have published a paper in the journal Ethology, once again prove that the animals that live in the neighborhood are in the complex interaction, helping each other to cope with all sorts of dangers.