Prairie Dogs survive in the Sonaran Desert using a complex vocal language and social cooperation. â¡ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/NatGeoWILDSubscribe â¡ Watch all clips from Destination Wild...
========== [music playing]HOST: Life in the Sonoran
is full of surprises.It rains in the
summer, sometimesviolently, making it just
wet enough to sustaina semi-arid version of
the Midwestern grasslands.And with grasslands come
the US's most iconicgrass cutter, the prairie dog.[music playing]Prairie dogs are, of
course, not dogs at all,but are in fact closely
related to ground squirrels.Old-timers named them
for their dog-like bark.[yip]That's no simple yip.Scientists currently
believe that prairie dogs--[yipping]--have the most
sophisticated vocal animallanguage ever decoded.[music playing]They needed to warn each other.[yipping]Because in the Sonoran, of a
lot of things like to eat them,including the badger.[music playing]They dig a complex
system of burrows....
