2023-08-20 02:59:49
Published20. Aug 2023, 4:59 am
Attracting Screams: Caring or Hunger? Crocodiles recognize when babies are in distress
Crocodiles react immediately when they hear baby monkeys or humans crying. The following applies: the greater the distress that resonates with the cry, the stronger the reaction.
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Nile crocodiles like this one can hear and respond to cries for help from human babies, young bonobos and chimpanzees. This is shown by a study from France.
IMAGO/Panthermedia
In the Crocopark in Agadir (Morocco), the research team led by Julie Thévenet from the University of Lyon played scream sound samples to the Nile crocodiles and observed their movements in the crocodile pool.
Screenshot Youtube/Hannan Miah
The samples were from human babies…
Unsplash
That’s what it’s about
Crocodiles are attracted to the screams of fear from both baby monkeys and humans.
This is shown by the study by French researchers.
The attraction is particularly strong when the cries of the young animals and humans sound desperate.
So far it is unclear whether hunger or care is the reason for the reaction.
Some things are universal: cries for help, for example. Not only are they recognized as such in every language, but also across species boundaries. According to a study from France, crocodiles can apparently recognize when a baby monkey or human is in distress – despite the great distance between these species. “Crocodiles can perfectly identify the distress in the emergency calls,” explains one of the researchers involved, the bioacoustician Nicolas Grimault.
How did the researchers find out?
For those in the journal «Proceedings of the Royal Society B» For the study published, the team led by Julie Thévenet from the University of Lyon visited the Agadir Zoo in Morocco. There it set up loudspeakers near Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus), through which they played 30-second cry sound samples of human babies, young bonobos and chimpanzees – each time after the park was closed. Then they watched what happened.
How did the animals react?
The crocodiles responded to the screams in three ways: turning their heads, swimming toward the sound, and sometimes even biting the speakers. The researchers saw this as a strong reaction, because “crocodiles are usually rather immobile animals,” Grimault told Newscienctist.com (paid article). In the study, the reactions were particularly strong when the screams sounded desperate. “It means that suffering is something that very, very distant species share.” So there is a kind of emotional communication between crocodiles and humans. Unlike humans, the animals responded more strongly to “roughness” and “chaos” in the scream than to the pitch of the scream.
Would the crocodiles react to this bird from Sydney’s Taronga Zoo? He cries like a human baby.
20min/Jan Derrer
Why do the crocodiles react like this?
This cannot be said with certainty, since the researchers “could not tell whether a crocodile was male or female for practical reasons”. J. Sean Doody, a conservation biologist at the University of South Florida who was not involved in the study, says the information could have helped answer “the key question” — whether the crocodiles’ responses were care-driven or appetite-driven.
Screaming babies as crocodile bait
According to the researchers, the effect of baby cries on crocodiles has now been scientifically studied for the first time. However, the attraction is not entirely unknown: there is reportsaccording to which European hunters used crying human babies to lure crocodiles in sport hunting on the island of Sri Lanka in the 19th century.
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