Vocal accommodation found in African penguins

Bob Yirka is a research scientist at Phys.org.

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Italy have found that African penguins can vocalize. The group studied the vocalizations of penguins in three colonies over a three year period.

Scientists have been studying how humans evolved. Communications in other animals with less evolved communication skills are studied in one of the fields of study. One aspect of vocalizations looked into was vocal accommodation. Humans and other animals learn to speak like other people when they move to a new place. African penguins have vocal accommodations.

Three penguin colonies were set up by the researchers to record their vocalizations. They were looking for vocal patterns between penguins. When they were separated, they made calls to each other.

They looked at the calls over time. Their signatures became more similar. The penguins learned how to talk like each other. The reason penguins learned to speak more alike was that it made it easier to converse over the loud noise of other penguins trying to communicate at the same time, according to the researchers. The increase in social bonds between friends and mates could make the colony more cohesive.

The distance between humans and penguins on the evolutionary tree suggests that there are many more species with the ability.

More information: Luigi Baciadonna et al, Vocal accommodation in penguins ( Spheniscus demersus ) as a result of social environment, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0626 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

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