Book 11, Question 46
Why Do Prairie Dogs “Speak” in Chirps?
Prairie dogs chirp because their calls carry information about danger! They have different calls for different dangers. Scientists have found that the calls can describe the visitor, not just say run.
More fun facts
- When a prairie dog spots a predator like a hawk, badger or black-footed ferret, it gives an alarm call and the prairie dogs that hear it dash into their burrows.
- Black-tailed prairie dogs have 12 different calls, including calls about predators.
- In the jump-yip, a prairie dog stretches tall on its hind legs and throws its front feet into the air as it calls.
- One prairie dog's jump-yip often gets its neighbors, and even nearby groups, doing jump-yips too.
- Gunnison's prairie dogs make different alarm calls depending on the kind of predator and even its color and shape.
- In one experiment, prairie dogs made different calls for a person wearing a blue shirt than for a person wearing a yellow shirt.
- Prairie dog colonies more than about 30 kilometers apart have different sounding alarm calls, a bit like human dialects.
Sources: animaldiversity.org, National Institutes of Health, National Institutes of Health
Questions kids ask
Do prairie dogs really talk?
They do not use words like people, but their calls carry surprising details, such as what kind of predator is coming.
What is a jump-yip?
It is a call where a prairie dog stretches up and flings its front feet in the air, and it often spreads through the colony.