The alarm call system of two species of black-and-white colobus monkeys (Colobus polykomos and Colobus guereza).

Abstract

Vervet monkey alarm calling has long been the paradigmatic example of how primates use vocalizations in response to predators. In vervets, there is a close and direct relationship between the production of distinct alarm vocalizations and the presence of distinct predator types. Recent fieldwork has however revealed the use of several additional alarm calling systems in primates. Here, the authors describe playback studies on the alarm call system of two colobine species, the King colobus (Colobus polykomos) of Taï Forest, Ivory Coast, and the Guereza colobus (C. guereza) of Budongo Forest, Uganda. Both species produce two basic alarm call types, snorts and acoustically variable roaring phrases, when confronted with leopards or crowned eagles. Neither call type is given exclusively to one predator, but the authors found strong regularities in call sequencing. Leopards typically elicited sequences consisting of a snort followed by few phrases, while eagles typically elicited sequences with no snorts and many phrases. The authors discuss how these call sequences have the potential to encode information at different levels, such as predator type, response-urgency, or the caller's imminent behavior.

The alarm call system of wild black-fronted titi monkeys, Callicebus nigrifrons

“…These findings are consistent with the current theory of primate alarm calls, which states that aerial and terrestrial predators elicit acoustically distinct vocal behaviour (e.g., Seyfarth and Cheney 1980;Macedonia and Evans 1993;Zuberbühler 2000b;Digweed et al 2005;Fichtel et al 2005;Kirchhof and Hammerschmidt 2006;Schel et al 2009;Wheeler 2010). However, they are also at odds with N number of events per predator stimuli recorded and analysed.…”

“…Some species produce several acoustically distinct alarm calls in response to different predator types (Seyfarth et al 1980a, b;Manser et al 2002;Templeton et al 2005), but in others, the nature of the danger encountered is reflected by the number of calls per sequence (Schel et al 2009), the rate of call delivery (Lemasson et al 2010), the intensity of calls (Blumstein 1999), or by combinations of calls (Arnold and Zuberbühler 2006a, b).…”

“…For example, many birds produce high-pitched alarm calls that are difficult to locate. In contrast, many primate alarm calls are loud and conspicuous (e.g., Zuberbühler 2000a; Eckardt and Zuberbühler 2004;Schel et al 2009), suggesting that callers are less concerned about being located. Indeed, in some species, listeners respond in part by looking towards the caller, thereby demonstrating that calls are easily localisable.…”

Campbell's monkeys concatenate vocalizations into context-specific call sequences

“…Low-urgency situations were when the presence of a predator was revealed by acoustic cues (playback of predator calls, alarm calls by Diana monkeys); high-urgency situations were when the predator was visible (predator models; real predator encounters). This distinction was based on the results of another experimental study with forest African primates, which showed that call intensity was higher when a predator was detected in the visual than the acoustic domain (57).…”

Risk Assessment by British Children and Adults

“…Inexperienced (i.e. without previous exposure) primates from several species recognize large-bodied felids, such as leopards (P. pardus), as inherently dangerous (Coss & Ramakrishnan, 2000;Davis, Parr, & Gouzoules, 2003;Schel, Tranquilli, & Zuberbühler, 2009) and children detect lions rapidly in computer displays (Penkunas & Coss, 2013a,b). As such, it is reasonable to predict that preschool children will perceive a lion as very dangerous.…”