Longitudinal recordings of female vampire bats show individuals shift their ultrasonic contact calls to match those of new partners as they form grooming and food‑sharing bonds. The acoustic convergence tracks social interactions over years, suggesting vocal learning is used beyond kin recognition to actively forge affiliative ties.
— If vocal convergence is a general social tool across mammals, it reframes questions about the evolution of language, social cognition, and how conservation or captive management might disrupt or harness communication to support group stability.
BeauHD
2026.01.09
72% relevant
Both items show nonhuman mammals using socially mediated communicative capacities beyond simple conditioning: the dog study (Science) demonstrates eavesdropping and referent mapping from human social cues, which connects to the existing idea that vocal and communicative plasticity in mammals (e.g., vocal mimicry in bats) functions to build affiliative social bonds and complex social knowledge.
Molly Glick
2026.01.07
60% relevant
Both pieces use field studies of nonhuman mammals to draw mechanistic inferences about social and developmental traits in humans; the chimp study (Kibale recordings, iScience paper) parallels the method and logic of the existing idea that comparative animal behaviour can reveal human social mechanisms.
Molly Glick
2025.12.02
100% relevant
The Nautilus account of an 8‑year lab study where female vampire bats’ contact calls were recorded across sessions and correlated with observed food‑sharing and grooming ties.