Western Australian magpies respond to urgency information contained in conspecific alarm calls

What is it about?

Many species of birds and mammals produce alarm calls when approached by predators. These alarm calls can encode important information such as predator type, size, and distance (considered a proxy for level of threat urgency) to predator. In this study, we conducted playback experiments to test whether Western Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen dorsalis) can respond to urgency information in conspecific alarm calls and if responses are affected by the sex of the receiver. Magpies were exposed to low-urgency calls (alarm calls with one note) and high-urgency calls (alarm calls with four notes) as well as one- and four-note control calls. Receivers showed greater levels of responsiveness following playbacks of high-urgency calls compared to playbacks of low-urgency calls and control calls. In addition, we found that the ability to understand risk-based information contained within conspecific alarm calls is not affected by sex. Our research reveals that magpies can respond to information about the urgency of a predator threat from conspecific alarm calls.

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