Do you remember the “Gondor calls for aid” scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King? The beacons are lighting up one by one across mountaintops, each signaling danger to the next. Something similar is happening deep in the Amazon rainforest, except with sound.
According to a study published in Current Biology and detailed in The Conversation by Ettore Camerlenghi and Ari Martínez, birds and monkeys are part of what the researchers call an “internet of the forest,” a communication network that spreads predator warnings across species.
Researchers went to the Peruvian Amazon and used trained raptors to simulate predator threats. By recording and replaying alarm calls, they observed how information about the threat moved through the forest, from species to species. What they observed was a coordinated system in which one species identified the threat, then let their buddies know by unleashing their own call, which other animal species have learned to listen out for, then released their own emergency call, and so on until everyone knew to be on the lookout. It’s like the “Omar comin’” scenes from The Wire if Omar were a bird of prey.
How Animals in the Amazon Built Their Own Version of the Internet
It all starts with small birds living high up in the canopy. Species like the white-fronted and black-fronted none birds notice the threat first, then relay warnings to anyone within earshot. Larger animals like A chins and spider monkeys will join in, responding to the bird alarm, even if they didn’t see the threat themselves. Reminds me of some really good advice you can practically apply to your own life: if you see a bunch of people running away from something, don’t bother figuring out what they’re running from. Just run with them.
Something the researchers noticed is that the warning was just as much about silence as it was about noise. As the warning of a looming predator spreads, the noisy canopies of the Amazon go eerily quiet as birds stop calling each other, likely in an attempt to be as invisible as possible so they don’t become some predator’s breakfast.
The research was mostly focused on warnings belted out from the canopy because that’s where they occurred. Animals at the ground level didn’t participate as much. This means there’s a layered communication system in which the upper levels of the rainforest serve as a biological information superhighway. The study just goes to show that when you’re in a pinch, it’s nice to have friends in high places.
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