The local dialect of the naked mole is determined by the "Queen"

the naked mole may not be the most attractive rodent, but it is still a concern. These hairless, mostly blind and deaf animals live in groups of up to 300 individuals, communicating with treble squeaks. Now, researchers have found that, like humans and many birds, mole colonies have their own dialects, which are preserved by their queens.
, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Vienna in Austria who was not involved in the study, said: "This study is exciting because it provides evidence for the first time that rodents learn sounds. More research may help scientists better understand how the complex sounds of herd animals, including humans, evolved. Naked
arefor a host of strange traits: they rarely get cancer, live longer than other rodents, and are highly resistant to pain. Researchers have been interested in them since the 1970s because they are also a rare example of mammals, like bees and ants, living in a group of worker bees ruled by a female leader or "post-rat". Scientists know that naked mole rats communicate with a squeal, but until now they didn't know how complicated their calls were.
new study first recorded the greeting of a naked mole when they met: a gentle chime. Over a two-year period, researchers in laboratories in Germany and South Africa recorded more than 36,000 of the 166 animals living in seven populations.
to figure out what these sounds mean, the team developed software that automatically classifys sound based on its acoustic characteristics. The program can recognize the sounds of specific moles, revealing that each group has its own unique mole, characterized by different sound patterns and tones. The team reported in the January 29 issue of Science that when scientists played back the sounds, the rodents were more likely to respond to sounds from their own habitats with chints.
to determine that these animals respond to the dialects of their populations rather than familiar sounds, the researchers created an artificial voice with the characteristics of a particular group dialect. They found that moles were more likely to respond to artificial sounds from their populations than to signals from external populations.
"they recognize their own dialects. Study co-author Alison Barker, of the German National Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), said she spent months listening to the rodents and now can recognize the dialects of each population with her ears.
researchers believe that the Mole developed dialects to detect intruders. Naked moles are very violent to foreign visitors and usually kill intruders. Because they live in the dark and can barely see anything, using sound is the best way to identify intruders, the researchers said.
"They're very xenophobia and want to make sure they stay in their tribe," he said. Co-author Gary Lewin of MDC said, "Mastering a dialect is a way to keep social bonds alive." The
team further showed that nakedlearn the dialects of their populations at a very young age. When the researchers placed the newborn cubs in an outer territory, the orphans learned the dialect of the new territory within six months.
, however, like human language, the dialect of the naked mole will disappear with the changes of society. During the experiment, the two mice were later overturned and killed. The dialects of their populations faded away, and a new dialect was not established until a new naked mole rat, the Queen, was chosen. "Without the Queen, some members of the colonies became free, and they began to give up their dialects and speak their own way," Barker said. Barker did not yet know how the monarch controlled the way his subjects spoke.
"This is an elegant and highly skilled study. Thomas Park, a biologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says he has been studying naked mole rats for more than 20 years. He would like to see more research on the cubs, "sorting out which sounds are genetically determined and which are learned the day after the day." Both
And the study's authors believe that moles can help scientists better understand how voice communication evolved in different animals. Barker and Gary Lewin's team has begun studying traces of language evolution in rodent genomes. "If we find out what constitutes the mole's social brain, it will give us an insight into what makes humans vocal and social," Lewin said. (Source: Feng Weiwei, China Science Journal)
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