If you matched a Swiss singer against a monkey vocalist in a yodeling contest, the non-human primate would win handily, according to a study published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
It turns out apes and monkeys possess vocal membranes in their throats that humans lack. Scientists suspect these structures slowly disappeared through evolution to allow for more stable speech. So what evolutionary advantages do these throat structures provide monkeys and apes? How do these membranes work? And why do monkeys need them?
Yodeling, by definition, requires rapid back-and-forth shifts in pitch — between a low note from the chest and a high one from the throat. The study explains what gives monkeys the competitive edge.
