Signal brevity and compression in loud calls of the white-headed langur
Penglai Fan, Yinshu Liu, Guichuan Zeng, Ruoshuang Liu, Michael J Lawes, Qihai Zhou, Ming Li · 2026
Read Signal brevity and compression in loud calls of the white-headed langur by Penglai Fan, Yinshu Liu, Guichuan Zeng, Ruoshuang Liu, Michael J Lawes, Qihai Zhou, Ming Li (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13266200.txt.
Description
Penglai Fan and colleagues test whether langur loud calls follow language-like brevity laws, published in 2026. Adult male white-headed langurs in karst forests produce three loud call types in long sequences. Frequent types proved shorter, supporting the brevity law. Patterns for the second law were more mixed.
Gaps between calls shortened in longer sequences, while only one call type compressed in duration. Physical strain shortened calls and lengthened gaps later in sequences. Snorts grew proportionally commoner in longer sequences, while long roars grew rarer. Constant durations for some calls may aid distance travel and caller recognition. The trade-off balances energy cost against clarity.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Penglai Fan, Yinshu Liu, Guichuan Zeng, Ruoshuang Liu, Michael J Lawes, Qihai Zhou, Ming Li |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 41 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |