The Smart and Shady Prairie Dog

Animals do some weird shit. Dogs sniff each other’s butts in a “what’s up?” session. Cows simultaneously face north (or south) when eating. Several species of birds in India dive head first into the ground committing acts of suicide. When you dig a little deeper, it becomes evident that animals and humans do a lot of the same weird shit. Prairie dogs throw shade, pigeons procrastinate, and crows gossip and hold grudges.

Let’s examine prairie dogs, those things you see dead and scattered all over the road here in Colorado. If you’ve ever looked around in unclaimed Colorado territory, you know exactly what these cute little creatures look like, but what you wouldn’t know is that prairie dogs have the most sophisticated vocal language ever decoded in an animal. Their jibber-jabber isn’t quite as complex as our own language, but is significantly better than chimps and dolphins. Of course, this could change with further research, but in the meantime, prairie dogs reign supreme.

In 2013, Con Slobodchikoff, an animal behaviorist from Northern Arizona University and founder of the Animal Language Institute, discussed his research on the vocalizations of the prairie dog. He discovered that this species’ communication system is so advanced, they not only have different warning calls depending on the type of predator — coyote, domestic dog, human, hawk — they also construct sentences describing what a particular predator looks like. So: “A medium, rectangle-shaped dog with black and tan fur (we call them German shepherds) is approaching” or “Here comes a tall human being wearing white after Labor Day who is also fat!” (We’re pretty sure prairie dogs sentences sound much more elegant.)

By showing captive prairie dogs a number of simple silhouetted shapes such as triangles, circles, and squares, Slobodchikoff also determined they can come up with new calls to communicate to each other about things they’ve never seen before. Basically when you walk toward a group of prairie dogs, you won’t know it but they’re throwing you some hardcore shade.