Greene E, Meagher T
Division of Biological Sciences, The University of Montana
Anim Behav. 1998 Mar;55(3):511-8. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1997.0620.
Red squirrels, can produce alarm calls when they detect a potential predator. Observations of natural interactions between red squirrels and large birds, and predator-presentation experiments in the field, showed that red squirrels produce acoustically different alarm calls in response to aerial danger (live birds and a model hawk flown towards them) versus danger approaching from the ground (dogs and humans). The alarm call produced in response to aerial danger is acoustically convergent on the 'seet' alarm call produced by many species of passerine birds in response to raptors. The squirrels' 'seet' alarm is a short, low-amplitude, high-frequency call. These characteristics make the call difficult to localize, and is in a frequency range that is poorly perceived by raptors. Red squirrels produce much louder, wide-bandwidth bark calls in response to terrestrial danger. This is the first demonstration of predator-class specific alarm calls of red squirrels. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
红松鼠在察觉到潜在捕食者时会发出警报声。对红松鼠与大型鸟类之间自然互动的观察以及野外的捕食者呈现实验表明，红松鼠针对空中危险（活鸟和飞向它们的模拟鹰）与来自地面的危险（狗和人类）会发出声学上不同的警报声。针对空中危险发出的警报声在声学上与许多雀形目鸟类针对猛禽发出的“嘶”警报声趋同。松鼠的“嘶”警报是一种短的、低振幅、高频的叫声。这些特征使得这种叫声难以定位，并且处于猛禽难以察觉的频率范围内。红松鼠针对地面危险会发出响亮得多的宽带吠叫声。这是首次证明红松鼠具有针对捕食者类别特定的警报声。版权所有1998动物行为研究协会 版权所有1998动物行为研究协会。
