Tuesday, 24 December 2019

Monkey Moves

Japanese workers at Kyoto University have reportedly shown that both male and female Common chimpanzees, when individually given access to a music booth with short recordings of 'strident piano rhythms', sway about clap along and even sometimes tap their feet (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/dec/23/cha-cha-chimp-ape-study-suggests-urge-to-dance-is-prehuman). The scientists regard this as evidence that the tendency to dance in primates occurs earlier than in the human species (none of the chimpanzees had had earlier experiences of the music booths and the animals received no rewards for their actions). 

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