Human language and communication skills are unique in the animal kingdom. How they developed in the course of evolution is being researched, among other things, using the alarm call system of vervet monkeys. East African vervet monkeys warn their conspecifics against predators with special alarm calls that mean “leopard”, “eagle” or “snake”. In a recently published study, scientists from the German Primate Center (DPZ) – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research have investigated how the closely related West African green monkeys react to unknown sounds. To do this, they flew a drone over a group of West African green monkeys and later played them a sound recording of the drone noise. From the reactions of the animals, the researchers were able to conclude that the animals learn very quickly what the drone noise means. However, the monkeys did not create a new alarm call, but used a call that the East African vervet monkey uses to warn against aerial predators like eagles. This suggests that the call structure is conserved and was determined long ago in the course of evolution. The study is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
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Source: Phys.org