Prairie dogs are the Paul Reveres of the Great Plains: They bark to alert neighbors to the presence of predators, with separate calls for dangers coming by land or by air.

To protect themselves, the curlews eavesdrop on the alarms coming from prairie dog colonies, according to research published Thursday in the journal Animal Behavior.

so far, scientists have documented only a few instances of birds eavesdropping on mammals.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s rare in the wild,” she said, “it just means we haven’t studied it yet.”