Birds combined calls more than 11 million years ago
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Salis, Ambre
Ryder, Robin J
Molina, Axel
Schlenker, Philippe
Chemla, Emmanuel
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Multiple members of the tit and chickadee (= Parid) family combine two classes of calls, F and D, in a rigid order FD. In Japanese tits, FD has been argued on the basis of multiple experiments to involve syntax and non-trivial compositionality. How ancient are these call combinations? We show that FD combinations (as well as individual F and D calls) are present in nearly all Parid species, and almost absent in their closest relatives, the Remizidae and Stenostiridae. Using phylogenetic tools and ancestral reconstruction methods, we infer that FD combinations very likely emerged between 11 and 26 million years ago in the eastern Himalayas. This result contributes to evolutionary animal linguistics using a comparative phylogenetic approach to reconstruct the evolution of call combinations.
Date Issued
2025-07-01
Date Acceptance
2025-06-03
Citation
Scientific Reports, 2025, 15
ISSN
2045-2322
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Journal / Book Title
Scientific Reports
Volume
15
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
10.1038/s41598-025-05497-w
Subjects
Animal communication
Combination
Evolution
Mobbing
Syntax
Ancestral signals
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
21338
Date Publish Online
2025-07-01