Recognition of familiarity on the basis of howls: a playback experiment in a captive group of wolves

In: Behaviour
Authors: V. Palacios1, E. Font1, R. Márquez2, and P. Carazo1,3
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  • 1 Instituto Cavanilles de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva, Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
  • | 2 Fonoteca Zoológica, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid, Spain
  • | 3 Edward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Online Publication Date:
20 Mar 2015
In:
Volume 152: Issue 5
Article Type:
Research Article
Pages:
593–614
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/1568539X-00003244
Keywords:
Canis lupus; howls; individual discrimination; playback; acoustic structure

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Playback experiments were conducted with a pack of captive Iberian wolves. We used a habituation–discrimination paradigm to test wolves’ ability to discriminate howls based on: (1) artificial manipulation of acoustic parameters of howls and (2) the identity of howling individuals. Manipulations in fundamental frequency and frequency modulation within the natural range of intra-individual howl variation did not elicit dishabituation, while manipulation of modulation pattern did produce dishabituation. With respect to identity, across trials wolves habituated to unfamiliar howls by a familiar wolf (i.e., no direct contact, but previous exposure to howls by this wolf), but not to unfamiliar howls from unfamiliar wolves (i.e., no direct contact and no previous exposure to howls by these wolves). Modulation pattern seems to be an important bioacoustic feature for individual recognition. Overall, our results provide the first experimental evidence that wolves can discriminate individuals based on the acoustic structure of their howls.

In:
Behaviour
E-ISSN:
1568-539X
Print ISSN:
0005-7959
Publisher:
Brill
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