[rael-science] Looks Like a Rodent, Croons Like a Bird

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/science/hyrax-songs-have-orderly-syntax-researchers-say.html?_r=2&ref=science

Looks Like a Rodent, Croons Like a Bird

Debbie Hill for The New York Times
A rock hyrax in the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve in Israel.

By JAMES GORMAN

Published: April 19, 2012

First things first: The hyrax is not the Lorax. And it does not speak for the trees. It sings, on its own behalf. The hyrax is a bit Seussian, however. It looks something like a rabbit, something like a woodchuck. Its closest living relatives are elephants, manatees and dugongs. And male rock hyraxes have complex songs like those of birds, in the sense that males will go on for 5 or 10 minutes at a stretch, apparently advertising themselves.

One might have expected that the hyrax would have some unusual qualities — the animals’ feet, if you know how to look at them, resemble elephants’ toes, the experts say. And their visible front teeth are actually very small tusks. But Arik Kershenbaum and colleagues at the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University have found something more surprising. Hyraxes’ songs have something rarely found in mammals: syntax that varies according to where the hyraxes live, geographical dialects in how they put their songs together. The research was published online Wednesday in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Watch video: http://nyti.ms/I96II1

Bird songs show syntax, this ordering of song components in different ways, but very few mammals make such orderly, arranged sounds. Whales, bats and some primates show syntax in their vocalizations, but nobody really expected such sophistication from the hyrax, and it was thought that the selection of sounds in the songs were relatively random.

Hyraxes are common in Africa and the Middle East, and there are quite a lot of them where Mr. Kershenbaum lives. He kept hearing their songs and thinking, “I simply don’t believe that these complex songs can be totally random.”

So he and his colleagues recorded hyraxes around Israel and analyzed the makeup of the songs using mathematical techniques drawn from genetic analysis. They found a complex syntax that did vary. They suspect that the dialects may be carried by males when they leave their home territory as they mature, and that changes in dialect come as other hyraxes copy the songs imperfectly or improvise.

Their songs are not like those of birds, as you might imagine by the way scientists have broken down the notes, or syllables, of hyrax arias. The five kinds of sounds are the “wail,’ ‘chuck,’ ‘snort,’ ‘squeak’ and ‘tweet.’ ”

Syntax, Mr. Kershenbaum said, is one of the building blocks of language. Not that he or anyone else is saying that the hyraxes are talking to one another, or to us, or have anything like language. The songs, he says, probably don’t carry any information in their arrangement of sounds, although the males may make them longer and more complicated to attract females, showing off their songs the way other animals might show off elaborate plumage or large antlers.

Even so, finding such complex vocal arrangements outside of whales, bats and primates is significant, and may suggest that syntax is present in other mammals as well.

Hyraxes are common where humans live, Mr. Kershenbaum said, and are relatively popular, although he does get calls from people asking how to keep the animals out of their gardens — not exactly his area of expertise. The callers don’t really want to hurt the hyraxes, he said.

“They’re pretty well liked,” he said, “even when they’re hated.”

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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
 
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history, 
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
 
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
 
Rael
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