The drumbeats are let out in short bursts across the rainforest — a deep but quick staccato. The Nimba Mountains of Guinea provide a spectacular backdrop for the short performance, with their tall peaks and deep valleys, yet it’s the performers themselves — chimpanzees — that have researchers flocking to the forests.
The apes there have a habit of drumming on the tops of roots that stretch from the base of tree trunks. Jane Goodall and others have long assumed that this behavior represents a form of communication between chimps. But researchers didn’t empirically test the hypothesis until recently.
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From January 2012 to April 2014, primatologist Maegan Fitzgerald and her colleagues tracked down 19 of these drum trees and measured their properties. They additionally analyzed similar trees nearby, which the chimps didn’t choose to drum on. As part of the ...
