Communication

Abstract

As far as we know, the ancestors of cattle lived on the plains at the edge of forest (Chapter 1), and there is little doubt that they were social, herd-living mammals. In order to retain their social cohesion they, like other species, had to communicate, that is, convey information about themselves and the environment to each other. Forms of communcation differ, and the particular method (or methods) adopted by a species depends to a large extent on its habitat. There would be little point in nocturnal animals, or animals who live in dark forests, for example, having elaborate visual signals for communcation. Such species (for example, pigs) therefore, tend to communicate vocally rather than visually while plains-dwelling species often have a very sophisticated system of visual communication, a good example being the horse, whose repertoire includes a remarkable number of postural changes and facial expressions (Trumler 1959, Kiley-Worthington 1969 and 1976). Cattle fall somewhere between these two groups. They call fairly frequently, which enables individuals to maintain contact even when they cannot see each other, but they also have a series of different body positions and some facial expressions which they use for communication, the latter particularly at close range.