Penguins perceive variations of source- and filter-related vocal parameters of species-specific vocalisations

Animal vocalisations encode a wide range of biological information about the age, sex, body size, and social status of the emitter. Moreover, vocalisations play a significant role in signalling the identity of the emitter to conspecifics. Recent studies have shown that, in the African penguin (Spheniscus demersus), acoustic cues to individual identity are encoded in the fundamental frequency (F(0)) and resonance frequencies (formants) of the vocal tract. However, although penguins are known to produce vocalisations where F(0) and formants vary among individuals, it remains to be tested whether the receivers can perceive and use such information in the individual recognition process. In this study, using the Habituation-Dishabituation (HD) paradigm, we tested the hypothesis that penguins perceive and respond to a shift of ± 20% (corresponding to the natural inter-individual variation observed in ex-situ colonies) of F(0) and formant dispersion (ΔF) of species-specific calls. We found that penguins were more likely to look rapidly and for longer at the source of the sound when F(0) and formants of the calls were manipulated, indicating that they could perceive variations of these parameters in the vocal signals. Our findings provide the first experimental evidence that, in the African penguin, listeners can perceive changes in F(0) and formants, which can be used by the receiver as potential cues for the individual discrimination of the emitter. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10071-023-01806-w.