Chimpanzees can Learn 'Food Calls'

Chimpanzees living in captivity are capable of learning calls that refer to specific food items. This was shown by an evolutionary biologist from the University of Zurich together with English researchers. They now published a behavioral study suggesting, that great apes are capable of referring to objects and socially learn meaningful calls.

A special feature of human language is that objects and events are named with socially learned symbols or words. Non-human primates like chimpanzees are arguably capable of producing alarm and food calls,that refer to objects in their environment. However so far researchers assumed, that the acoustic structures of these calls are an expression of their excitement and cannot be controlled by the chimpanzees. Now Simon Townsend, Evolutionary biologist from the University of Zurich has shown together with his English colleagues, that also chimpanzees can learn calls that refer to specific objects.

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