Bonobos Talk Like Babies, Says Scientific Study Of The Endangered Apes

Bonobos talk lake babies, says a recent study on the endangered great apes, CNN is reporting.

Bonobos, if you’re not aware, are an endangered species of great ape found only in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Largely similar to chimpanzees in appearance and behavior, bonobos also share 98 percent of their DNA with another species of great ape: humans.

Like most animals, bonobos have a variety of ways of communicating: howls, growls, posturing, even blowing raspberries to get attention. But they also frequently communicate in what scientists are calling “peeps” – that is, short, high-pitched bursts of sound.

Lead researcher Dr. Zanna Clay, via The Daily Mail, explains:

“When I studied the bonobos in their native setting in Congo, I was struck by how frequent their peeps were, and how many different contexts they produce them in. It became apparent that because we couldn’t always differentiate between peeps, we needed understand the context to get to the root of their communication.”

Researches studying those peeps learned that when the bonobos are calm – eating, grooming, or resting – those peeps remained largely the same. But when the animals were alarmed – say, a predator was nearby – the peeps varied wildly.

To researches, this means that the bonobos’ speech involves what biologists call “functional flexibility,” according to the study published in the academic journal Peer J, something that was only thought to exist in humans.

“Our data suggest that the capacity for functional flexibility has evolutionary roots that predate the evolution of human speech.”

So what does this have to do with babies? If you’ve ever been around babies, you’ll notice that they, too, have a variety of ways of communicating, even if speech is beyond them. In addition to crying, screaming, or laughing, babies make babbling sounds – and blow raspberries, like their bonobo cousins – for any number of reasons, or for no reason at all.

In other words, bonobos’ “speech” is the evolutionary equivalent of “baby talk.” To Dr. Clay, it means that humans and their bonobo cousins are closer than we think.

‘It appears that the more we look, the more similarity we find between animals and humans.”

Unfortunately, bonobos are severely threatened thanks to loss of habitat, poaching, and the illegal bushmeat trade, according to Endangered Species International.

Perhaps the news that bonobos talk like babies, and the endangered apes’ newfound similarity to humans, will help push forward conservation efforts.

[Image courtesy of: Shutterstock/GUDKOV ANDREY]