So I just learned this today, but when small birds in the forest make an alarm call that they see a bird of prey, other animals nearby mimic that alarm call and spread the message around to warn each other.
It's not just birds that mimic the alarm call, squirrels and other small mammals do it too. Squirrels are apparently especially good at mimicing the alarm call. The alarm goes out and all the nearby animals, regardless of species contribute to it and benefit from it.
I just think it's wild that small forest animals developed what amounts to a rudimentary common language to deal with predators.
I was thinking about animals sharing alarm calls and the thought "the animals have unionised" popped into my head. I kept playing with that idea and made this.
That's interesting because I recall seeing a documentary that showed that different rainforest animals listened to each other's alarm calls so that if a monkey made the "oh shit jaguar!" call other animals would take cover too, and not just other species of monkey. But I didn't know that behavior was seen in woodland/small critters too, or that they would mimic calls. That's so amazing.
