Gibbons Sing Human-Like Duets To Connect With Each Other

If a gibbon wanna be another gibbon’s lover, they gotta get with each other over a session of karaoke.

Lar gibbons, specifically, sing rhythmic duets to bond with one another, scientists have found out. The apes’ tunes are synchronized and are belted out more frequently during the courting process between males and females.

Due to the melodic similarities of gibbon duets to human songs, researchers posit the development of music could have been evolutionary.

Scientists realized that singing was a social activity between the primates after studying 215 songs crooned by 12 lar gibbons in Thailand and Italy.

They learned that gibbons held regular rhythms, but males were most consistent during duets with females than when they were singing solo. They also discovered that male and female gibbons overlapped each other’s tunes 16% to 18% of the time, New Scientist reports.

Interestingly, females sang less regularly when their voices intermingled with their male counterparts’. Andrea Ravignani, one of the researchers, deduces that this indicates singing patterns are based on social contexts.

This knack for belting out human-like tunes with a mate has previously been observed in indris (Indri indri), a lemur found in Madagascar.

All this suggests that our love of music is potentially primal, and it could perhaps explain why being able to play a guitar and serenade someone can earn you brownie points. Though, scientists haven’t figured out if the last common primate ancestor also had natural singing abilities or those kicked in later.

[via Laughing Squid and New Scientist, cover photo 197581100 © Roger Utting | Dreamstime.com]