A case of spontaneous acquisition of a human sound by an orangutan |
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Authors: | Serge A Wich Karyl B Swartz Madeleine E Hardus Adriano R Lameira Erin Stromberg Robert W Shumaker |
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Institution: | (1) Great Ape Trust of Iowa, 4200 SE 44th Ave, Des Moines, IA 50320, USA;(2) Research Group Behavioural Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, PO Box 80086, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands;(3) Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, 3001 Connecticut Ave, NW Washington, DC 20008, USA |
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Abstract: | The capacity of nonhuman primates to actively modify the acoustic structure of existing sounds or vocalizations in their repertoire
appears limited. Several studies have reported population or community differences in the acoustical structure of nonhuman
primate long distance calls and have suggested vocal learning as a mechanism for explaining such variation. In addition, recent
studies on great apes have indicated that there are repertoire differences between populations. Some populations have sounds
in their repertoire that others have not. These differences have also been suggested to be the result of vocal learning. On
yet another level great apes can, after extensive human training, also learn some species atypical vocalizations. Here we
show a new aspect of great ape vocal learning by providing data that an orangutan has spontaneously (without any training)
acquired a human whistle and can modulate the duration and number of whistles to copy a human model. This might indicate that
the learning capacities of great apes in the auditory domain might be more flexible than hitherto assumed.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
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Keywords: | Vocal learning Great apes Imitation |
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