Sciuridae
Cynomys ludovicianus
(black-tailed prairie dog)

Image Caption:
A black-tailed prairie dog barks to announce the presence of a potential threat to others in the prairie dog town.  This sort of "teamwork" vigilance makes approaching a prairie dog town unnoticed very difficult.  Con Slobodchikoff has conducted several studies on the calls of Gunnison's prairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni), and found that they can encode information about the type of threat (whether the threat is a coyote or hawk for example), information about color, shape, and size of the threat, and by decreasing the time between barks they can encode information about the speed of the threat (p. 257-258).  The related black-tailed prairie dogs may have a similarly sophisticated communication system.

<<  Prairie Dog Alarm Bark                                                  >>

Cynomys ludovicianus (Black-tailed Prairie Dog)
Works Cited:

Slobodchikoff, C. N. (2002). Cognition and communication in prairie dogs. pp. 257-264 in: Bekoff, M., C. Allen, and G. Burghardt, eds. The Cognitive Animal, MIT Press.
Image Location: United States, South Dakota, Wind Cave National Park
Image Date: 2009AUG16
Image Species: Cynomys ludovicianus
(EXIF Information is accurate – stamped in UTC).

Web Page and Pictures By Peter Leitheiser
Updated: 2009NOV11