Scientists Study The Scream Of The Squirrel

SimianOverlord writes "The BBC details a recent breakthrough in Squirrel to Man understanding. Scientist James Hare, in his study of the North American Ground Squirrel, noted peculiar behaviour; they appeared to 'lose their voice' while communicating, producing only a 'breathy whisper' in sound ranges audible to the human ear. On a hunch, the intrepid boffin borrowed a 'bat detector', which translates inaudible ultrasound into the human hearing range, and discovered the Squirrels were using a whole range of distinct ultrasound messages which can give gradated threat warnings or be targetted to family members, all without any predators detecting the message, or easily pinpointing the location of the caller. Though it has been known for some time rodents use ultrasound, this is believed to be the first time that it has a proven purpose, and the content of the messages have been deciphered."

Comments

Re:Ground squirrels = gophers

[will_die]

Actually it is more of an american problem.
Gophers are members of the Geomyidae and native to the Americas.
The creature from this study is a Spermophilus richardsonii, family Sciuridae, commonly known as the Richardson's Ground Squirrel.
However it is very common in the US to call any larger ground based burrowing rodents a gopher.