top of page

Canids

Wolves, coyotes, dogs...

Wolves, coyotes, dingos, and dogs all howl, but each species howls noticeably differently from each other.  Can we quantify these vocal differences and use them to understand the different behaviours, and perhaps also help the conservation of endangered canids like the red wolf (Canis rufus), and the New Guinea Singing Dog, pictured below?

Nighttime recording of howling wolves from one of my study packs in Montana

Canid species and sub-species use howling and other vocalisations for similar purposes, but they can sound quite different. Grey wolves (with many different sub-species/races) sound differnt from red wolves, coyotes, domestic and feral dogs, dingoes and NGSDs, as well as jackals, and even the more distantly related dholes.

 

My research is looking into:

  1. How different species, and possibly even different sub-species, have characteristic differences in their howl structure.

  2. Using passive acoustic monitoring to locate the geographic source of a howl, by measuring the time difference of arrival of the howl sound at a number of different recording devices in different places.

  3. Finding differences between howls in different contexts: group howling of an assembled pack, vs. cohesion calls between separated individuals.

Related references

  • Kershenbaum A., Déaux É.C., Habib B., Mitchell B., Palacios V., Root-Gutteridge H., Waller S. (2017) Measuring acoustic complexity in continuously varying signals: how complex is a wolf howl? Bioacoustics

  • Kershenbaum A., Root-Gutteridge H., Habib B., Koler-Matznick J., Mitchell B., Palacios V., Waller S. (2016) Disentangling canid howls across multiple species and subspecies: structure in a complex communication channel.Behavioural Processes

bottom of page