by Jonte Rhodes

Created on: December 12, 2007

Animals like humans have a range of senses that they can use to recognize each other and different ways of communicating. Depending on the survival needs of the particular species most animals will tend to have some sense stronger then others, whereas humans have a balance of all senses that enable us to recognize each other more easily. We mainly tell another human by touch, sight and hearing, as humans are fairly unique in each respect in that they have skin rather then fur, are bipedal which most species aren't, and make sounds that other animals cannot (other than trained parrots ill grant you, but they do have a certain accent that gives them away).

Animals however have to rely on other senses as well because of their less complex brains that do not allow them to reason as humans do, for example if we see say a tent in the wilderness we can cognitively assume that another human is inside through reasoning, whereas an animal through this process alone wouldn't be able to tell what is inside. This is why animals tend to have some senses that are a lot stronger than human ones.

The majority of animals have much more developed senses of smell than humans, and can often use these to recognize each other and other animals as well. A lot of the animals that have the best senses of smell have limited vision or simple vision such as dogs or cats which are colorblind, which can make it very difficult to pick out objects against each other and the background unless they are discernibly moving. Animals who use smell as a major sense can often smell a lot more then just what species something is, they can often smell chemicals such as adrenaline or blood or an injured or panicked animal or prey.

Snakes for example have been known to attack when being handled if they detect high levels of adrenaline because it being a stress hormone it is perceived to them as being that you are ready to attack them, rather then you just being scared of nervous of them. Similarly ants are known to follow scent trails when foraging, which is why you see hundreds of ants moving in the same direction seemingly without any organization or communication between them apart from accidental touch recognition.

There are some animals that rely on sight to recognize each other as well, although humans have better all round sight than any animal, birds of prey such as hawks for example are able to see moving objects from hundreds of feet up in the air, and recognize each other by sight as well as they recognize the shape of other hawks wings as they fly, differentiating them from prey birds. A lot of the ape family recognizes each individual by sight as well, and chimpanzees can even read each others mood through seeing facial expressions.

There are a variety of other methods that animals can use to recognize each other that humans tend not to use as well. Animals and invertebrates that live in very dark surroundings such as the deep sea floor or inside a cave often use sonar (as famously with bats and dolphins) to give them a picture of any objects in front of them. A lot of them also use vibrations near them to detect other animals moving near them, as well as touch in some cases. Some larger spiders have special hairs on their legs for example that are tuned to detect the vibrations of any other spiders near them or entering their territory, as well as prey items and their proximity.

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