Gibbons 'sing' to ward off enemies

When the white-handed gibbons discovered a leopard lurking near the shelter, instead of secretly watching, the primates would quietly approach the suspicious and shout a long string.

The sounds that animals make are often thought to represent their basic moods such as sadness, joy, irritability, fear. However, there is growing evidence that animals use calls to inform special situations for their fellow humans.

For example, the white forehead (Vervet) emits a kind of sound when they see a snake to signal the fellow to look at the ground. When they met an eagle, they shouted another way, causing the others to look up at the sky.

Until now, scientists have very little evidence of such a high level of communication in primates in nature. People once witnessed white-handed gibbons taking up the big, rhythmic " song schools " every morning. They often pair up to make a chorus. Their songs can be heard far away in the jungle.

Vervet white monkey (Photo: biochem.ucl.ac.uk)

Primer Esther Clarke and colleagues at the University of St. Louis Andrews (England) followed the white-handed ape in Thailand's Khao Yai National Park. To see how gibbons react when they see predators, scientists use effigies of leopards, lions, wild dogs and snakes to experiment.

In most lives, white-handed gibbons live on tree branches 50 to 300 meters above the ground. But when the predators are discovered, they often climb down the branches at a height of 5 to 10 m and scream .

"You may think that gibbons will flee predators, but in reality they do not. The way to solve the situation of white-handed gibbons is to inform the enemy that they have been discovered and stalking. no results, " Clarke said.

Interestingly, although white-handed gibbons use the same steps in the "songs", the order of arranging them when they shout in front of predators is completely different from the order. arrange when they sing together , especially the first 10 levels. This is the first time such communication has been discovered in primates. The findings could help scientists shed light on the evolution of human language.

Black-handed gibbon (Photo: LiveScience)

"There are a number of reasons to believe that human language comes from primates. So we care about primates' communication language systems to find out whether humans are like and different from spirits. What are the communication skills, ' Clarke said.

Researchers believe that gibbon sing different songs corresponding to each type of predator. However, they argue that they need to learn more to confirm this.

Viet Linh