The weeping vocalization of the Screaming Hairy Armadillo (Chaetophractus vellerosus), a distress call

AMAYA JP; ZUFIAURRE E; ARETA JI; ABBA A

JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY

ALLIANCE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP DIVISION ALLEN PRESS

Lugar: Lawrence; Año: 2019 vol. 100 p. 1427 - 1435

0022-2372

Distress calls are signals given by individuals experiencing physical stress such as handling by apredator. These calls have been recorded in numerous phylogenetically distant vertebrate species,and share certain acoustic features, such as high-amplitude, broad-band and rich harmonicstructure. Screaming Hairy Armadillos (Chaetophractus vellerosus) sometimes give a highamplitudeweeping call when captured by predators or disturbed by humans. We provide the firstacoustic characterization of this call using recordings of hand-held wild individuals, and testwhether it constitutes a distress signal. The weeping call was a harsh, loud, broad-band, longsound, composed of five note types: crying, inhaled, inhaled sobbing, exhaled sobbing and gruntnotes. Crying notes were the most common, distinctive and loudest sounds. The proportion ofarmadillos that called when disturbed was between nearly five to seven times higher than whentreated with care. Likewise, 223 hunters reported armadillos consistently weeping when trappedby dogs, and no weeping was heard in natural undisturbed conditions. Our data support a distresssignal role for the weeping call.