Monkeys are "best yodellers" in the world, study says

The world's best yodellers aren't found high in the pristine mountaintops of the Alps – instead, scientists say, they can be found in trees, jungles and rainforests across the globe.

It's because the world's best yodellers are monkeys, a study published this week in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B found.

Once thought to be the exclusive domain of humans, researchers from Anglia Ruskin University in England and the University of Vienna in Austria recorded and studied the calls of various monkeys at La Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary in Bolivia. Primates studied included the black and gold howler monkey, tufted capuchin, black-capped squirrel monkey, and Peruvian spider monkey.

Monkeys, scientists found, had a secret yodelling weapon; the primates possess special anatomical structures in their throats called vocal membranes. These membranes disappeared from humans through evolution to allow for more stable speech. These membranes allow monkeys to introduce "voice breaks" to their calls at the same rapid transitions in frequency heard in yodelling but at much higher octaves than humans.

They learned that the primates use these yodels to differentiate themselves and communicate with others, much like humans who used the high, low and deep-throated pitches in rural mountain ranges as a form of communication.

"These results show how monkeys take advantage of an evolved feature in their larynx—the vocal membrane—which allows for a wider range of calls to be produced, including these ultra-yodels," said study senior author Jacob Dunn, associate professor in Evolutionary Biology at Anglia Ruskin University, in a statement.

"This might be particularly important in primates, which have complex social lives and need to communicate in a variety of different ways," he said.

New World monkeys, whose range stretches from Mexico to Argentina, were found to have evolved the largest vocal membranes of all the primates. As a result, the New World Monkeys are "ultra-yodellers," the primates can have frequency leaps up to five times larger than the frequency changes that are possible with the human voice. New World monkeys are also capable of exceeding three musical octaves.

"This is a fascinating example of how nature provides the means of enriching animal vocalization, despite their lack of language," said study lead author Christian T. Herbst at the University of Vienna.

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