這只名叫邦妮的猩猩也會吹口哨，它會將嘴唇并攏在一起并發(fā)出哨音,。
據(jù)美國《科學(xué)》雜志在線新聞報道，雖然靈長類動物經(jīng)過訓(xùn)練能夠?qū)W會這樣的發(fā)聲法,，但邦妮卻是第一只無師自通的猩猩——這只生活在美國華盛頓哥倫比亞特區(qū)史密森國家動物園中的猩猩,，在飼養(yǎng)員的暗示下，自己學(xué)會了吹口哨,。這一發(fā)現(xiàn)表明,，類人猿的模仿本領(lǐng)可能比之前的認(rèn)識更為強(qiáng)大，它甚至為研究人類語言的進(jìn)化提供了幫助,。研究人員在2008年12月出版的《靈長類》雜志上報告了這一發(fā)現(xiàn),。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
Primates， doi：10.1007/s10329-008-0117-y,，Serge A. Wich,，Robert W. Shumaker
A case of spontaneous acquisition of a human sound by an orangutan
Serge A. Wich1, 2 , Karyl B. Swartz1, 3, Madeleine E. Hardus2, Adriano R. Lameira2, Erin Stromberg3 and Robert W. Shumaker1, 3
(1)Great Ape Trust of Iowa, 4200 SE 44th Ave, Des Moines, IA 50320, USA
(2)Research Group Behavioural Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, PO Box 80086, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands
(3)Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, 3001 Connecticut Ave, NW Washington, DC 20008, USA
Abstract The capacity of nonhuman primates to actively modify the acoustic structure of existing sounds or vocalizations in their repertoire appears limited. Several studies have reported population or community differences in the acoustical structure of nonhuman primate long distance calls and have suggested vocal learning as a mechanism for explaining such variation. In addition, recent studies on great apes have indicated that there are repertoire differences between populations. Some populations have sounds in their repertoire that others have not. These differences have also been suggested to be the result of vocal learning. On yet another level great apes can, after extensive human training, also learn some species atypical vocalizations. Here we show a new aspect of great ape vocal learning by providing data that an orangutan has spontaneously (without any training) acquired a human whistle and can modulate the duration and number of whistles to copy a human model. This might indicate that the learning capacities of great apes in the auditory domain might be more flexible than hitherto assumed.
