Wolves’ howls have distinct identities, voice recognition study shows

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/07/wolves-howls-have-distinct-identities-voice-recognition-study-shows/

by bitops • 13 years ago

21 8 13 years ago

DamnYuppie3• 13 years ago

How is this even surprising to anyone? Unless they are clones then every creature is slightly different and you would expect their vocalization to be unique as well, for example how often do you meet people who have the exact same voice? Only issue is our hearing probably isn't sharp enough, or optimized to the same frequencies/ranges, to pick up the differences in the sounds generated by most animals.

dwiel• 13 years ago

Yeah, not surprising in the least. I think in many cases we have the physical ability to destinguish these things we just dont care to pay attention. It isnt exactly the same, but there are people who can tell what other animals are saying with some detail. For example birds saying what kind of predators are around and how far away they are.

tekromancr• 13 years ago

Surprising? no. But very, very cool!

DamnYuppie3• 13 years ago

I agree that it is cool. I am a huge proponent of people understanding the amazing world around them. Nature is really f'ing amazing....and often times quite tasty!

205guy• 13 years ago

Nobody said it was surprising, you're just mistaken in the tone of the write-up. The job of the science writer is to take some science news, explain it, add some context and quotes around it and make it exciting enough to click on and read. To have an excited or entheusiastic tone for a subject, as these wolf researcher understandably do, is not the same as wanting you to be surprised by it.

Also, the advancement of science being reported is not that wolf howls are thought to be distinct, it's that somebody wrote the code that finally proves that they are. Granted, you might've thought that it was trivial code and it had already been done, but the fact is it hadn't been done until now, probably more because of funding issues than tech issues.

Hopefully, this tech (materials and code) will become more commonplace among zoologists, so that the cost of animal vocalization analysis comes down and gets funded quickly across all species. It seems like a promising new tool in the field.

And am I the only one that is thinking of the animated movie "Alpha and Omega" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_and_Omega_%28film%29)? One key part of the movie is that some wolves howl better than others, but they can also learn to improve.

DamnYuppie3• 13 years ago

I did not mistake the tone of the write up. I was simply trying to vent my frustration at this type of research.

cpearce• 13 years ago

This is not surprising at all. But I'm a dog person. I can identify most of the dogs that live on my street by their barks/howls.

christopheraden• 13 years ago

It's not surprising, but still fascinating. This property isn't limited to humans and wolves and dolphins, either. Scientists at Cornell showed that parrotlets have unique "names" given by their parents. http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/07/parrots-learn-their-...

Wolves’ howls have distinct identities, voice recognition study shows

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