Over the last 40–50 years, ethology has become increasingly quantitative and computational. However, when analysing animal behavioural sequences, researchers often need help finding an adequate model to assess certain characteristics of these sequences while using a relatively small number of parameters. In this review, I demonstrate that the information theory approaches based on Shannon entropy and Kolmogorov complexity can furnish effective tools to analyse and compare animal natural behaviours. In addition to a comparative analysis of stereotypic behavioural sequences, information theory can provide ideas for particular experiments on sophisticated animal communications. In particular, it has made it possible to discover the existence of a developed symbolic “language” in leader-scouting ant species based on the ability of these ants to transfer abstract information about remote events.
Thanks, yeah, this link works, I’ll check it out.
I heard about the hummingbird in Ed Yong’s book, An Immense World. He said in there that the theory is that it is making such high songs(~30KHz), despite having a range of hearing that only goes up to about 8KHz, most likely due to the fact that the insects it eats is using high frequencies. I don’t know if they are actually attracting insects with it or just messing with their own communication or what. In general, that book by Yong was really good, it’s a decently in-depth look at all the different senses.