ANIMAL TALK

USA Today science writer Friend provides an amiable, anecdotally rich tour of communication as witnessed throughout the animal kingdom, fresh with the latest ideas behind how and why we all send signals.

Songs, dances, scents, chirps, hoots, yowls, body movement, eye contact, elements of flash—the author examines them all “to learn how animals communicate with each other and what they spend so much time chattering to each other about.” Stripped to its essentials, his main interest is how a sender provides information to a receiver, how the receiver responds to that signal, and the relationship between these two acts. The signals might entail, for example, electrical fields, or bioluminescence, or quorum-sensing by bacteria to decide if they are numerous enough to play dirty with their host’s cells. It isn’t any wonder that much signaling involves sex, real estate, and chow, nor does it come as much of a surprise that communication is thought to have “evolved as a more economical substitute for physical violence.” Underneath the dense, idiosyncratic layering each species has draped upon the signaling process can be seen peeking out a captivating set of motivational and structural rules of engagement. Tones can be harsh, low-frequency attack accompaniments or the high-frequency sounds of submission. Songs of love should not be confused with the sparrows’ singing competitions, which have been interpreted as the equivalent of “Yo’ mama”; “No, yo’ mama” and “Piss off”; “No, you piss off.” Friend handles the nature vs. nurture, instinctive vs. learned behavior debates with aplomb, just as he explains with dexterity the growing recognition of a body of shared gestures between species and the significance of gesture as language. His text boasts its own communicative clarity: nothing here need suspend disbelief; indeed all the signals seem strangely, comfortably familiar, from honeyguide bird to humpback whale.

A very credible overview.