Primate prattle is not just monkeying around: scientists
Monkeys can string sounds together to communicate just like humans do, scientists at a Scottish university said.
Experts from the University of Saint Andrews discovered that putty-nosed monkeys in west Africa could combine two different noises to mean something different again.
The primates used their two main call types to alert each other to the presence of predators in the area: a string of "hacks" indicated a hovering eagle, while a burst of "pyows" warned against a loitering leopard.
But a sentence made up of several pyows followed by a few hacks told the group to move off to a safer area.
Experts Kate Arnold and Klaus Zuberbuehler made the discovery during observations of the species in Nigeria's Gashaka Gumti National Park.
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Primate psychologist Arnold played variations of the calls back to the monkeys to see how they responded.
She said their research that the monkeys communicated different information by combining two existing calls, rather than creating a new one.
"These calls were not produced randomly and a number of distinct patterns emerged," she said.
"The pyow-hack sequence means something like 'let's go' whereas the pyows by themselves have multiple functions and the hacks are generally used as alarm calls."
It was previously thought that animal communication systems used one signal to mean one particular thing.
Arnold added: "This is the first good example of animal calls being combined in meaningful ways.
"The implications of this research are that primates, at least, may be able to ignore the usual relationship between an individual call and any meaning that it might convey under certain circumstances."
Zuberbuehler added: "To our knowledge, this is the first good evidence of a syntax-like natural communication system in a non-human species."
The research took three years to complete and is being published in the science journal Nature.
The publication's Michael Hopkin said: "These building blocks that they use are being strung together -- you could describe them as words.
"This is not something I have come across before."
Monkeys, gorillas and chimpanzees are the closest relations to humans in the animal kingdom.
Experts from the University of Saint Andrews discovered that putty-nosed monkeys in west Africa could combine two different noises to mean something different again.
The primates used their two main call types to alert each other to the presence of predators in the area: a string of "hacks" indicated a hovering eagle, while a burst of "pyows" warned against a loitering leopard.
But a sentence made up of several pyows followed by a few hacks told the group to move off to a safer area.
Experts Kate Arnold and Klaus Zuberbuehler made the discovery during observations of the species in Nigeria's Gashaka Gumti National Park.
Original Article or
Primate psychologist Arnold played variations of the calls back to the monkeys to see how they responded.
She said their research that the monkeys communicated different information by combining two existing calls, rather than creating a new one.
"These calls were not produced randomly and a number of distinct patterns emerged," she said.
"The pyow-hack sequence means something like 'let's go' whereas the pyows by themselves have multiple functions and the hacks are generally used as alarm calls."
It was previously thought that animal communication systems used one signal to mean one particular thing.
Arnold added: "This is the first good example of animal calls being combined in meaningful ways.
"The implications of this research are that primates, at least, may be able to ignore the usual relationship between an individual call and any meaning that it might convey under certain circumstances."
Zuberbuehler added: "To our knowledge, this is the first good evidence of a syntax-like natural communication system in a non-human species."
The research took three years to complete and is being published in the science journal Nature.
The publication's Michael Hopkin said: "These building blocks that they use are being strung together -- you could describe them as words.
"This is not something I have come across before."
Monkeys, gorillas and chimpanzees are the closest relations to humans in the animal kingdom.