Alarm Signal - Monkeys With Alarm Calls

Monkeys With Alarm Calls

Vervet monkeys are the typical example of both animal alarm calls and of semantic capacity in non-human animals. They have three distinct calls for leopards, snakes, and eagles, and research shows that each call elicits different responses. When vervets are on the ground they respond to the eagle alarm call by looking up and running to cover, to leopard alarm calls primarily by looking up and running into a tree, and to the snake alarm call primarily by looking down. When in trees vervets responded to the eagle alarm call by looking up and down and running out of trees, to the leopard alarm call by running higher in the tree and looking both up and down, and to the snake alarm call by looking primarily down.

Campbell's mona monkeys also generate alarm calls, but in a different way than Vervet monkeys. Instead of having discrete calls for each predator, Campbell Monkeys have two distinct types of calls which contain different calls which consist in an acoustic continuum of affixes which change meaning. It has been suggested that this is a homology to human morphology. Similarly, the Cotton-top tamarin is able to use a limited vocal range of alarm calls to distinguish between aerial and land predators. Both the Campbell monkey and the cotton-top tamarin have demonstrated abilities similar to Vervet monkeys' ability to distinguish likely direction of predation and appropriate responses.

That these three species use vocalizations to warn others of danger has been called by some proof of protolanguage in primates. However, there is some evidence that this behavior does not refer to the predators themselves but to threat, distinguishing calls from words.

Another species that exhibits alarm calls is the barbary macaque. Barbary macaque mothers are able to recognize their own offsprings calls and behave accordingly.