Prairie dogs have an intricate set of calls to alert each other to predators. Scientists are finding other animals are benefitting from these calls.
Chih-Yun Chiang/ Getty Images
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Chih-Yun Chiang/ Getty Images
Prairie dogs have an intricate set of calls to alert each other to predators. Scientists are finding other animals are benefitting from these calls.
Chih-Yun Chiang/ Getty Images
Why did the ornithologist strap a taxidermy badger to a remote controlled car and drive it around the prairie? To interrogate the secret world of animal eavesdropping in the grasslands, of course! Today on the show we travel to the most imperiled ecosystem on the planet to unravel a prairie mystery and find out why prairie dogs are grassland engineers worth keeping tabs on.
Special thanks to Andrew Spencer and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for providing the Long-billed Curlew call recording, and to American Prairie for providing prairie soundscape recordings.
Got a question about other animal ecosystem engineers? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.
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This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by Tyler Jones. Robert Rodriguez was the audio engineer.
