Scientists have found that naked mole rats have unique chirps and squeals specific to the colony that is determined by their queen, reports Sofia Moutinho for Science magazine.
Study author Alison J. Baker, a neuroscientist at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, and her team found naked mole rats use a vocalization called “the soft chirp” to determine who belongs within the colony and who might be a foe.
They’re very xenophobic, so they want to make sure that they stay within their own tribe, having a dialect is a way to keep the social bond alive,” says senior author Gary Lewin, a neurobiologist at Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, to Science.
The mole rat colonies’ dialect, while uniform, is not constant and can change as soon as a monarch is overthrown. In two instances, when a queen was killed, the colony lost its unique sound, reports Science. When a new queen sat on the throne, the community began adopting the new dialect, which could mean that the queen somehows controls the colony’s sound, reports Science News.