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โครงการรวบรวมและจัดทําเอกสารวารสารอิเล็กทรอนิกส์ มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์

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INTERSPECIFIC COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE COMMON MYNA

(ACRIDOTHERES TRISTIS) AND THE WHITE-VENTED MYNA
(ACRIDOTHERES GRANDIS)

2
3
1,*
1
Theerasak Jaimipak , Somboon Kamtaeja , Surakan Payakkhabutra & Supaluck Viruhpintu

ABSTRACT

Sharing information about predators is a vital importance for birds that live in flocks. The Common myna
(Acridotheres tristis) and the White-vented myna (Acridotheres grandis) usually live together in the same
foraging and roosting flocks. Interspecific signals that could transfer crucial information between species
need some similar structures for decoding the signals. Alarm and pre-flight calls of mynas were recorded
when they were disturbed by human presence. Distress calls were recorded when the birds were captured
from mixed-species foraging flocks. The structures of distress, alarm and pre-flight calls of mynas were
analysed by using maximum frequency, minimum frequency, call length and bandwidth. Latent time of
neck stretching and head turning behaviour were used to analyse the response of the birds. The results
showed that the sonograms for distress, alarm and pre-flight calls for both species indicated high, medium
and low levels of similarity. All sounds were interspecific communication, but alarm and pre-flight calls may
carry more species specific elements than distress calls. This finding suggests that mynas could use distress,
alarm and pre-flight calls to transfer crucial information in mixed-species flocks.

Keywords: Common myna; White-vented myna; distress calls; alarm calls; pre-flight calls

INTRODUCTION

Animals get benefits from living with group members by receiving essential information. Groups
of animals may be composed of different species that are able to share crucial information about
resources or predators (Goodale et al., 2010). Therefore, the ability of members to communicate
about the risk of predation are important to group living species (Krams, 2010). They could recognize
antipredator calls when they live in the same area and have the same predators (Hurd, 1996). In

addition, gathering information from other individuals may take a shorter time than their own
samplings. They may observe alarm signals and copy their companions’ decision for avoiding
predators (Morand-Ferron et al., 2010).
Interspecific signals such as the distress and alarm calls of birds are the signals that they use
in potentially harmful situations. The information may transfer between species such as, alarm calls
that can communicate between mammal and bird (Rainey et al., 2004) or between species of birds

1 Faculty of Science, Naresuan University, Phitsanulok, 65000, Thailand
2 Faculty of Education, Chiang Rai Rajabhat University, Chiang Rai, 57100, Thailand
3 Faculty of Science, Lampang Rajabhat University, Lampang, 52100, Thailand
* Corresponding author: supaluckv@nu.ac.th

วารสารสัตว์ป่าเมืองไทย ปีที่ 25 1 พ.ศ. 2561 Journal of Wildlife in Thailand Vol. 25, 2018