Gibbon Moms Help Daughters Practice Their Singing for Future Mates

Before their daughters grow up and leave home, mothers may impart some lessons in the womanly arts—for example, the proper way to whoop and hoot with your mate while sitting in a tree branch. As an adult, a female gibbon sings elaborate duets with her male partner. But before she leaves the family, her mother seems to take responsibility for the daughter's vocal lessons. Young gibbons spend many years learning to vocalize like adults. By age six or so, "sub-adult" apes can match the vocal prowess of a grownup. Mothers and daughters often sing at the same time, though it's not clear why. Researchers traveled into the rainforests of Sumatra to make audio recordings of gibbon families and try to figure out whether these sing-alongs are significant. Lead author Hiroki Koda of Kyoto University and his colleagues studied six families of agile gibbons (that's a species name, not just a ...