Page 23 - The Villager March 2021

Nature

after a year, their son began making
chimp noises and the chimp had made
no progress in the other direction.
the spinoff from the quest has been
a constant stream of the unexpected.
It brought an awareness that we
share our planet with creatures whose
intelligence and social behaviour have
been grossly underestimated.
We now know, for instance, that
elephants can receive messages
through their feet by picking up
vibrations from the ground - vibrations
transmitted by other elephants way out
of sight. elephants, generally assumed
to be silent creatures are anything but.
Using ultrasound – beyond the range
of human ears – they can communicate
in relays from family to family across
thousands of square kilometres.
Dolphins, even when kilometres
apart, communicate with whistle-like
calls and their ‘whistles’ can identify
them as individuals. Using whistles,
they can call an individual ‘by name’
from out of a pod: “hey Fred!” and Fred
will respond using his own identity
whistle to say: “I’m here!”
apart from sound and ultrasound,
many animals communicate using
smells and body language and, in the
case of dolphins, something bordering
on extrasensory Perception (eSP).
there are institutions concentrating
on finding ways to converse with crows
and parrots and, as we are discovering,
they have amassed some quite startling
results.
If ever we are to talk with an animal,
we will have to differentiate that
animal’s grunts, snorts, clicks, squeals,
screams, whistles, rumblings, hoots
to make a stuffed beef roll. are to all the other primates. yet despite and roars as well as its body language,
yet here we are trying to almost a century of research into ape and decipher them.
communicate with creatures that are communication, we’ve achieved very, Surprisingly among the favourites is
totally cocooned in their own secret very little. the first serious attempt was the elephant, the dolphin, Prairie dogs
styles of communicating. in 1931 when an american husband- (ground squirrels) and even crows,
If we are to achieve success, which wife team, both psychologists, brought whose teaspoon-sized brain outwits
is the most likely candidate? Most an infant chimpanzee into their home that of a chimp’s.
people would put their money on and raised it alongside their infant (Footnote: The writer is currently
the chimpanzee, our nearest relative. son. the two youngsters got along completing a book on cross-species
Chimps are closer to humans than they famously. the couple gave up when, communication.)

The Villager • Issue 3 2021 • 21