There is substantial prior discussion of this here on HN. I can't use search from this browser, but if you think the HN community is worth listening to, you might want to search for "Prarie Dogs".

Typed on my bloody useless Blackberry - don't ask.

Here it is, from a month ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5808979

> Also remarkable was the amount of information crammed into a single chirp lasting a 10th of a second.

> "In one 10th of a second, they say 'Tall thin human wearing blue shirt walking slowly across the colony.'"

Millions of years of evolution at work. We're still a young species here.

The other guys are also evolving: in some ways we are all young species,

Sharks have been refining there same basic design / ecological nitch for around 420 million years and have come up with some awesome adaptations. Dolphins on the other hand are vary recent and while clearly compeditive still have plenty of minor 'issues' to work out.