If you're a giant panda, this sound means romance.

"I wouldn't call it a romantic serenade " Megan Owen, a conservation biologist at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. "There's nothing soft or demure about it." 

And yet: that sound, called a bleat, "that's B-L-E-A-T, just like a goat" signals that a panda couple has hit it off, and copulation is nigh. 

Owen and her colleagues analyzed more than 2,500 panda sounds recorded during breeding introductions, and analyzed the audio’s acoustic qualities. Their study, in the journal Royal Society Open Science, is a sort of how-to guide for panda breeders, cataloguing the various vocal characteristics of a blind date: an uninterested roar or bark ; a more ambiguous chirp ; or an amorous bleat.  

[Benjamin D. Charlton et al., Vocal behaviour predicts mating success in giant pandas]

Decoding the sounds could be important not just for boosting panda numbers, Owen says, but for avoiding very bad dates. "These are bears and they have sharp teeth and claws and they can do a lot of damage to one another if they don't want to be around each other."

And these fine-tuned communication skills also make the case that the social lives of pandas are anything but black and white.

—Christopher Intagliata

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]

如果你是一只大熊猫，这种声音意味着浪漫。


“我不会称之为浪漫的小夜曲<笑声>”Megan Owen，圣地亚哥动物园保护研究所的保护生物学家。 “没有任何软性或娴静的东西。”


然而：那声音，被称为咩咩声，“那就像B-L-E-A-T，就像一只山羊”，表示一对熊猫夫妇已经击中它，交配就在附近。


Owen和她的同事分析了在育种过程中记录的超过2,500个熊猫声音，并分析了音频的声学特性。他们在皇家学会开放科学期刊上的研究，是对熊猫育种者的一种指导方针，对相亲的各种声音特征进行编目：不感兴趣的咆哮或树皮;更暧昧的唧唧声;或是一种多情的咩咩叫。


[Benjamin D. Charlton等人，Vocal behavior预测大熊猫交配成功]


欧文表示，对声音进行解码对于提高熊猫数量非常重要，但要避免非常糟糕的约会。 “这些是熊，它们有锋利的牙齿和爪子，如果它们不想彼此相邻，它们会对彼此造成很大的伤害。”


而这些精心调整的沟通技巧也证明了大熊猫的社交生活不过是黑白分明的。


-Christopher Intagliata