The direct communication between humans and animals is not only for finding food but also for exchanging information or entertainment. However, have you ever wondered which animal among all the species cohabiting with us on Earth is the “most talkative”?
For humans, communication and exchange are the foundations of relationships and the keys to our success in daily life. Animals often produce sounds to send warnings, attract mates, signal pain, locate their kind, or defend their territory. Like humans, they use sound for many purposes, laying the groundwork for their social relationships, thus ensuring their survival.
Animals often produce sounds to send warnings, attract mates, signal pain…
But have you ever wondered which animal among all the species living with us on Earth makes the most noise? What is the value of being a “chatterbox” when these sounds can alert predators but also pose survival risks?
For humans, we can measure “sound communication” from two aspects: first is the time spent vocalizing; second is the diversity of the content conveyed by these voices. How do these two aspects apply to non-human species? Researchers have identified some common trends between noisy species and those that prefer quiet.
You might think that one of the main drivers of animal communication is the level of social bonding within each species. Indeed, highly social species tend to express themselves vocally better. For example, birds like the sparrow will fly in flocks, often making loud noises while flying. Among mammals, there are also members like the meerkat, a small animal from southern Africa, which often lives in large social communities, cooperatively foraging and raising young, while also producing many sounds to alert their kind to nearby predators.
Highly social species tend to express themselves vocally better.
Arik Kirsenbaum, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge, UK, has studied the vocal communication abilities of animals and used algorithms to analyze and compare their sounds. “When they (meerkats) are foraging, they always ‘shout’ just to let everyone know, ‘I am here; it’s me; everything is fine; there are no predators around,'” Arik Kirsenbaum said, “they continue to make sounds to keep in touch with each other.”
However, this is not a universally applicable criterion. Arik Kirsenbaum stated that sociality does not necessarily mean that animals must communicate a lot, as noisy communication also has its costs.
Noisy communication also has its costs.
Another important factor is that sound also puts animals at risk of predation. Even highly social species—such as chimpanzees, which are closely related to humans—face significant pressure regarding their vocal communication. Kirsenbaum noted: “Considering the complexity of chimpanzee groups, their ‘voices’ can be said to be quite limited.” To minimize vocal communication, they often use gestures to communicate with each other.
Of course, sound is not a mandatory factor in animal communication. Kirsenbaum stated: “Animal species can still convey information to each other through sound, smell, or posture, which creates a comprehensive view of what to do and how to interact with other individuals.”
However, Kirsenbaum also pointed out that when social species communicate vocally, they often convey more diverse information. Generally, solitary animals tend to transmit simpler information, while animals living in large groups with high social behavior need to maintain a social hierarchy.
Yet, when we try to analyze what animals “say” when they produce sounds, the situation becomes more complicated. One reason is that humans have made mistakes in using the standard of “what communication is”—especially through the framework of language—to evaluate animal sounds.
There is evidence that some animal calls have specific meanings (this type of information is referred to by researchers as “referential communication”) and can be considered analogous to speech. For example, some monkey species will emit specific alarm calls to signal threats from predators, while dolphins produce different whistles for different relatives. Kirsenbaum stated: “They use this specific sound like a name, which can be considered a word.”
Thus, animal communication is not constructed from “discrete words” with distinct meanings like human language. This perspective has been confirmed in songbirds; although these birds have some of the most complex sound sequences in the animal kingdom, these sequences often occur in situations such as calling for mates or defending territory.
So, which animal is the “most talkative”? Kirsenbaum made a calculated guess that, according to his research, among the noisy animals, dolphins might be quite strong contenders. He said: “If you are underwater with dolphins, you will find that they are almost never quiet. They are always making noise.”
