A grassland bird eavesdrops on prairie dog calls to keep itself safe from predators

WASHINGTON -- Prairie dogs are the Paul Reveres of the Great Plains: They bark to alert neighbors to the beingness of predators, with abstracted calls for dangers coming by onshore oregon by air.

“Prairie dogs are connected the paper for conscionable astir each predator you tin deliberation of”— aureate eagles, red-tailed hawks, foxes, badgers, adjacent ample snakes — said Andy Boyce, a probe ecologist successful Montana astatine the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.

Those predators volition besides snack connected grassland nesting birds similar the long-billed curlew.

To support themselves, the curlews eavesdrop connected the alarms coming from prairie canine colonies, according to probe published Thursday successful the diary Animal Behavior.

Previous probe has shown birds often eavesdrop connected different vertebrate taxon to glean accusation astir imaginable nutrient sources oregon approaching danger, said Georgetown University ornithologist Emily Williams, who was not progressive successful the study. But, truthful far, scientists person documented lone a fewer instances of birds eavesdropping connected mammals.

“That doesn’t needfully mean it’s uncommon successful the wild,” she said, “it conscionable means we haven’t studied it yet.”

Prairie dogs unrecorded successful ample colonies with a bid of burrows that whitethorn agelong for miles underground. When they perceive 1 each other’s barks, they either basal alert watching oregon dive into their burrows to debar approaching talons and claws.

“Those small barks are precise large — they tin transportation rather a agelong way,” said co-author Andrew Dreelin, who besides works for the Smithsonian.

The long-billed curlew nests successful short-grass prairie and incubates eggs connected a crushed nest. When 1 hears the prairie canine alarm, she responds by pressing her head, beak and belly adjacent to the ground.

In this crouched position, the birds “rely connected the unthinkable camouflage of their feathers to go fundamentally invisible connected the Plains,” Dreelin said.

To trial conscionable however alert the birds were to prairie canine chatter, researchers created a fake predator by strapping a taxidermied badger onto a tiny remote-controlled vehicle. They sent this badger rolling implicit the prairie of north-central Montana toward curlew nests — sometimes successful soundlessness and sometimes portion playing recorded prairie canine barks.

When the barks were played, curlews ducked into the writer quickly, hiding erstwhile the badger was astir 160 feet (49 meters) away. Without the barks, the remote-controlled badger got wrong astir 52 feet (16 meters) of the nests earlier the curlews appeared to consciousness danger.

“You person a overmuch higher accidental of avoiding predation if you spell into that cryptic posture sooner — and the birds bash erstwhile they perceive prairie dogs barking,” said co-author Holly Jones, a conservation biologist astatine Northern Illinois University.

Prairie dogs are often thought of arsenic “environmental engineers,” she said, due to the fact that they conception extended burrows and nibble down prairie grass, keeping short-grass ecosystems intact.

“But present we are realizing they are besides shaping the ecosystems by producing and spreading information,” she said.

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