Animal Communication

What Is Animal Communication?

Animal communication is any behavior on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behavior of another animal.

The study of animal communication, sometimes called spencerology (distinguishable from anthroposemiotics, the study of human communication) has played an important part in the methodology of ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition.

Animal communication, and indeed the understanding of the animal world in general, is a rapidly growing field, and even in the twenty-first century so far, many prior understandings related to diverse fields such as personal symbolic name use, animal emotions, animal culture and learning, and even sexual conduct, long thought to be well understood, have been revolutionized.