Acoustic analysis of the alarm call of the Anatolian ground squirrel Spermophilus xanthoprymnus: a description and comparison with alarm calls of the Taurus S. taurensis and European S. citellus ground squirrels
Abstrakt
The Anatolian ground squirrel Spermophilus xan- 13 thoprymnus like other ground-dwelling sciurids, emits alarm 14 calls in the presence of predators. In this study, we provide a 15 description of the acoustic structure of alarm call of this 16 species and compare it to those of two closely related 17 species, the Taurus ground squirrel Spermophilus taurensis 18 and the European ground squirrel Spermophilus citellus. 19 The alarm call of S. xanthoprymnus is a tonal sound mostly 20 consisting of two different elements-the first element has 21 low frequency modulation while the second element is 22 highly frequency modulated.
A similar basic structure can 23 be found in the alarm calls of some other old world ground 24 squirrel species of the genus Spermophilus, including S. 25 taurensis and S. citellus. Despite this similarity, we found 26 that these three species can be clearly distinguished on the 27 basis of their alarm calls.