%0 Journal Article
%T Acoustic Repertoire of the Philippine Tarsier (Tarsius syrichta fraterculus) and Individual Variation of Long-Distance Calls
%A Milada £¿eh¨¢kov¨¢-Petr£¿
%A Richard Policht
%A Lubom¨ªr Pe£¿ke
%J International Journal of Zoology
%D 2012
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2012/602401
%X We present the spectrographic description of the vocal repertoire of the Philippine tarsier (Tarsius syrichta fraterculus), a solitary living nocturnal primate for which a very limited information about acoustic communication exists to date. The majority of vocalizations were performed around sunset and, less frequently, at sunrise. We identified eight call types. Five calls recorded during communication between adults included three long-distance calls¡ªloud call, smack-whistle, and whistle¡ªthen a soft locust-like chirp and a bird-like trill. Two other calls¡ªcheep and twitter¡ªwere recorded during mother-infant communication. One distress call was emitted by adults during handling. All calls were performed in the 9752£¿Hz to more than 22£¿kHz frequency range. This study provides the first evidence of individual variation in the long-distance calls performed by tarsiers. Moreover, our study provides a basis for future comparison within as well as between tarsier species taxonomy. Bioacoustic methods can be used in monitoring of these cryptic species and determining their distribution range. Thus, bioacoustic studies can help to improve conservation strategies of different population/species. 1. Introduction Many nonhuman primates use vocalizations as a primary mode of communication. Following studies of monkey and apes, investigators have begun to understand the role of the auditory communication in nocturnal, mainly strepsirhine, primates during the past decades, for example, [1¨C9]. Similarly to anthropoid primates, strepsirhines use vocalizations to contact conspecifics, announce territorial boundaries, or announce a potential threat. Vocalization is also used in spacing and group coordination [7, 10¨C12]. The most conspicuous signals that are most commonly researched during studies of primate communication are the long-distance calls, often referred as loud calls. Long-distance calls have received much attention from researchers studying nocturnal primate communication; however, complete acoustic repertoires including the close-range communication between conspecifics of nocturnal primates have only been described for a limited number of species (e.g., bush babies [1, 7], greater bamboo lemur [13], and crowned lemur [2]). Tarsiers are small nocturnal primates native to Asia. The Philippine tarsier (Tarsius syrichta) is the only species living in the Philippines. Due to the nocturnal and cryptic nature of tarsiers, vocalizations and scent marking have been recognized as main modes of communication [14, 15]. A recent morphological study of the brain
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijz/2012/602401/