They did no such thing. In order for 'reputation' to happen in the context of human society one would have to prove that squirrels have a sense of 'I'. I'll leave the current research and a few minutes of personal time with a rodent speak for that aspect. Further, correlation <> reputation. For example, how long after a given squirrel dedides to ignore a particular alarm cry does the alarm cry still work? One day, two? A week? More importantly, how many squirrels on average does a squirrel ask before it ignores the cry? Crap study, crap interpretation. On Sat, 24 Nov 2001, David Honig wrote:
Ground squirrels maintain reputations. Scientists played back alarm calls both with (to enhance) and without (to degrade) different individuals' calls. After 10 false alarms, that call was ignored; but the high S/N call caused alarms even without the threat (a stuffed badger) being present.
J Hare, B Atkins, Behav Ecol & Sociobio reported in Sci News 160 p 312
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