Referential Alarm Calls
Organizational alarms must communicate WHAT the threat is (threat type) and HOW URGENT it is (severity level).
Many species have referential alarm calls - calls that refer to specific external referents, essentially naming the type of threat. Vervet monkeys have distinct calls for leopards (bark → flee into trees), eagles (cough → look up, flee into bushes), and snakes (chutter → stand upright, scan ground). Each call triggers appropriate anti-predator behavior.
Prairie dogs have similarly sophisticated systems: Con Slobodchikoff discovered they encode predator type (hawk, coyote, human, dog), size, color, and speed in alarm call structure. A prairie dog hearing an alarm knows not just 'predator approaching' but 'medium-sized tan coyote moving quickly from north.' This semantic specificity accelerates response by eliminating threat assessment time.
Business Application of Referential Alarm Calls
Organizational alarms must communicate WHAT the threat is (threat type) and HOW URGENT it is (severity level). Ambiguous alarms like 'something's wrong' delay response; specific alarms like 'P1 CYBER BREACH: active data exfiltration' enable immediate appropriate action.