When Sukari, a 24-year-old gorilla from Zoo Atlanta, wants to attract the attention of her sitter to buy some tasty treats, she does it in a special way. The gorilla then opens its mouth to make a somewhat unusual sound. What Sukari doesn’t know is that since she interacts so much with her caregivers, just managed to develop a new way of communicating with them in an example of mastery where he uses a skill so rare in the animal kingdom: vocalization
That voice the researchers called “narrow” – to remind you of a mix between sneezes (sneezeEnglish) and cough (cough)- attracted the attention of experts from the very beginning. Some caregivers referred to this new sound, but did not attach much importance.
However, the subject captivated researchers Roberta SalmiI, Monica Szczupider of the University of Georgia, and Jodi Carrigan of Zoo Atlanta. Was it an indication of vocal ability or was it a random sound? Researchers began working with Sukari and the rest of her family to discover the secret behind this “unnecessary” thing. The results are published openly in the journal. please a.
To find out if the sound was the product of a complex vocalization technique, the researchers did a simple experiment. They observed how eight zoo gorillas behaved in different scenarios. In the first, a zookeeper stood by them, but without food. In the second, the researchers simply brought the food out without anyone else. In the last, a zoo keeper would approach them, but this time with food in hand.
Alone in front of the porter who brings food
The researchers found that gorillas only make sounds when a human is present and holding food.. They suggest that its meaning is similar to the human “ahem”. The goal is hopefully to draw attention to a food prize. Interestingly, only half of the individuals uttered the new remarkable sound, and they were all adult female gorillas. The three of them had a close relationship: Sukari and Kudzoo are sisters and Macy is Kudzoo’s first child.
Gorillas have previously shown to be very good at recognizing and distinguishing different people’s voices, but They went one step further with this discovery. Add with ‘gorillas’narrow‘ to a select list of animals, including orangutans and chimpanzees, who can voice what they want to say to humans.
These experiments were repeated with similar results at other zoos in the United States and Canada.. Gorillas in both countries made similar sounds, and six of them showed they knew how to make this special call for humans in different zoos.
In the researchers’ view, these clues may indicate that gorillas have learned that these sounds are effective in communicating with humans, and it’s also possible that primates passed on this information.
Reference work: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0271871
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