Scientists have found that gophers use ultrasound to communicate with each other.
Nature sometimes doesn't seem to know what's natural. Who would have thought that a Richardson's ground squirrel, a.k.a. the prairie gopher, sometimes becomes bat-like in its verbal behaviour?
Producing ultrasound is a rarity in the animal world. Bats famously use the very high-pitched sounds for their version of radar known as echolocation. But why do prairie gophers, which spend a considerable part of their lives underground, use a form of sound that travels only about 15 metres?
One hypothesis is that since only a few of the ground squirrels' predators can hear the sounds, the animals can warn other gophers that danger is lurking without also informing hawks or coyotes that they have been spotted.
Another suggestion is that since the whispers alert only near neighbors and near neighbors tend to be kin, family members would avoid being eaten and carry their genes into the next generation.
