zoosemioticshttp://www.oed.com/dictionary/zoosemiotics_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_usezoosemiotics, n.
Revised 2017

zoosemioticsnoun

  1. 1963–
    (In plural with singular agreement) the study of communication through semiosis or the use of signs, within and across animal species.
    Zoosemiotics also includes non-verbal communication among humans but excludes language-derived semiotic systems such as sign language or Morse code.
    1. 1963
      The term zoosemiotics—constructed in an exchange between Rulon Wells and me—is proposed for the discipline, within which the science of signs intersects with ethology, devoted to the scientific study of signaling behavior in and across animal species.
      T. A. Sebeok in Language vol. 39 465
    2. 1978
      In a collection of papers written by various experts in the field of..‘zoosemiotics’—in other words, animal communication—each writer tries valiantly to define what he means by the term.
      New Yorker 17 April 78
    3. 2011
      Zoosemiotics also studies the ways animals make sense of their environment and other animals.
      T. Maran et al., Readings in Zoosemiotics 1

Originally published as part of the entry for zoo-, comb. form

zoo-, comb. form was revised in June 2017.