"Complexity doesn’t always need words. The rhythms, patterns and structures we have uncovered in orangutan alarms remind us that meaningful communication can emerge in many forms, and that the roots of our language may lie not just in what is said, but how it is expressed"

Orangutans organize alarm calls using recursive rhythms—layered like Russian dolls—revealing cognitive roots of language once thought unique to humans. #Anthropology #Primates #LanguageEvolution #Orangutans #Recursion

Out today in Ann NY Acad Sci: orangutans show third-order rhythmic nesting in alarm calls—like music, rhythms within rhythms within rhythms. They adjust tempo and rhythm by threat type: faster for credible threats 🐯, slower for less credible alarms 🔵. doi.org/10.1111/nyas...

NLP may arise from both physiological constraints and communicative functions, with sexual dimorphism and age patterns hinting at additional selective pressures. ➡️ Check out the full article on the new Phil Trans B issue: doi.org/10.1098/rstb...

Have the courage to look them in the face! Because their faces can tell us a lot! Filippo and Dayanna made a massive effort and studied the faces of cotton-top tamarins with deep learning—a striking step for our visual communication studies! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The indri, a critically endangered lemur only found in Madagascar’s rainforest, might hold clues about the human knack for musicality, a Mongabay video explains. Watch the full video: “What singing lemurs can tell us about the origin of music” news.mongabay.com/video/2025/0...

Published today! Here we show how social life shapes musical timing in a duetting monkey... and how hard is singing while parenting! 🙈 🎶 doi.org/10.1098/rspb... @marcogamba.bsky.social