How is it sometimes possible to say where in the world a gerbil is from, by talking to it?

Fred, you probably went to bed tonight thinking that nobody cared about you and your gerbils, didn't you?
Well I care, but I don't know the answer to you question.
Thanks to you, I am a world expert on the mating habits of the Mongolian gerbil now. I know all about gerbil body language, how often to change their litter, and that I can never own a gerbil if I move to California...bet you didn't know that.!

Can we have a clue?

quote:

Originally posted by dance girl:

Can we have a clue?

Need a clue? Honestly ! And you are someone who cares about meriones unguiculatus?[Note: fanciers translate the Latin as 'clawed warrior' It isn't . Meriones was a charioteer of Idomeneus, who piloted his ships from Crete to Troy ; Ovid's Metamorphoses, book 13 at line 359;and the second word means 'having fingernails'. So it's 'like a charioteer cum sailor with long fingernails'. Hmm fancy! ]

But I digress.Just think back to November. Mongolian gerbil fanciers were in for a treat. I must confess that, at the time, I was engrossed in "Why humpback whales learn songs: Courting or ranging?" in the same volume,when my eye was distracted by the paper on p2947 of vol 122, November. "A vowel identification procedure for gerbils" by Sinnott and Mostellor was there in the mag., the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America You can find the abstract and the whole text free by going to the Society's website,going to the link below, then to vol 122 and scrolling down to 'bioacoustics' where the articles are listed by page number.[The abstract says that the paper will be illustrated with a video, but I'm not sure how much excitement or disappointment you can face ] Anyway, they found by experiments involving bowls of food and making noises at gerbils that, inter alia, Mongolian gerbils can distinguish between 'u' and 'i' and , more subtly, between the sound of 'ae' and 'a'. Haven't established whether, excitingly, by 'ae' the authors mean 'ae' as in Ancient Greek, adopted into Latin, which is a distinct sound there (ignored by Americans, who write e.g. 'haemophilia'as 'hemophilia' ), so the Gerbils are truly educated, or whether the authors are, dully, referring to the phonetic alphabet.

So, make noises at, speak to, your gerbil. If it distinguishes then odds- on it's Mongolian.

You may have missed the paper from 2005, in vol 118. It's "Alarm signals of the gerbil: Acoustic variation by predator [etc]" but this may not be so relevant in the domestic environment.

Journal key

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America?

You never said you were switching subscriptions from 'Horse and Hound' and "Dog World"..how the heck am I meant to keep up with you?

We did have gerbils once, but the cats bit their heads off, before they had a chance to display any special skills.

quote:

Originally posted by dance girl:
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America?

You never said you were switching subscriptions from 'Horse and Hound' and "Dog World"..how the heck am I meant to keep up with you?

Do you mind? ! Of course, when I get the 'Journal' I have to read it when it's hidden inside something like 'Readers' Wives' or 'Asian Babes' . Don't want people on the Cambridge train thinking I'm weird.It was the same with the trade magazine 'Muck Shifter and Bulk Handler' though not quite as bad. For some reason, the locals often misunderstood the title.

Ah, but which of your favourites do you only buy for the articles? Now the answer to that would be a true indicator of your weirdness.