Posted on 11/03/2015 11:00:04 AM PST by SunkenCiv
If you live in a foreign country, it helps to learn the local lingo.
And this holds just as true for apes as it does for humans, scientists claim.
Chimpanzees that had lived for years in a Dutch safari park adopted a 'Scottish accent' after they moved to a new home in an Edinburgh Zoo alongside nine local chimps, the researchers argue.
The Dutch apes would make high pitched grunts when they saw apples.
The local Edinburgh chimps, by contrast, made a distinctive, lower-pitched grunt.
It's evidence, the scientists from the universities of York, Zurich and St Andrews said, that apes have 'accents' that vary from place to place -- just like us.
It took several years for the expat apes to pick up the local dialect, because the two groups did not mix much when they were first introduced in 2010.
Dr Katie Slocombe, of the University of York said: 'They weren't spending much quality time together and there weren't many friendships. So they didn't have any motivation to change their calling.'
But after three years, the two groups buried their initial distrust of each other and got on famously.
In what is billed as a breakthrough in the study of language, the scientists said the Dutch apes adopted the same style of grunting as that of their hosts.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I’m not sure that I’m buying this. I’m no fan of chimps, though.
If they open a machine shop, give me a call.
I’ve disliked them since I learned that they know enough to sharpen a stick to hunt bushbabies.
They’re vicious animals once they reach puberty. They will attack, rip apart and kill humans.
The males are. The females are merely much stronger than humans. The adult males are something like 7 times stronger in the upper body.
I saw a documentary a few years ago, I think. It was shocking.
Get in ma belly.
Now he’s a GLADeN ONE
They made it to Lisbon and back to Scotland.
Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frHCwm57ZTA;t=415
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frHCwm57ZTA;t=600
:’)
The Gibraltar monkeys (Albion Wilde mentioned them above) and WWII... there was a superstition that Gibraltar would be British as long as the monkeys (which were introduced sometime in the past centuries) remained there. The population had fallen, so they were restocked at that time.
Yep
Chimps are shiftless, erratic, and not dependable.
Orangs, on the other hand...
Attenborough: Amazing DIY Orangutans - BBC Earth [2:40 minutes]
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