English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Despite the prevalence of vocal mimicry in animals, few functions for this behaviour have been shown. I propose a novel hypothesis that false mimicked alarm calls could be used deceptively to scare other species and steal their food. Studies have previously suggested that animals use their own species-specific alarm calls to steal food. However none have shown conclusively that these false alarms are deceptive, or that mimicked alarm calls are used in this manner. Here, I show that wild fork-tailed drongos (Dicrurus adsimilis) make both drongo-specific and mimicked false alarm calls when watching target species handling food, in response to which targets flee to cover abandoning their food. The drongo-specific and mimicked calls made in false alarms were structurally indistinguishable from calls made during true alarms at predators by drongos and other species. Furthermore, I demonstrate by playback experiments that two of these species, meerkats (Suricata suricatta) and pied babblers (Turdoides bicolor), are deceived by both drongo-specific and mimicked false alarm calls. These results provide the first conclusive evidence that false alarm calls are deceptive and demonstrate a novel function for vocal mimicry. This work also provides valuable insight into the benefits of deploying variable mimetic signals in deceptive communication.

Fork-tailed drongos use deceptive mimicked alarm calls to steal food