Scientists at the University of S. Andrews in Fife, Scotland studying in Nigeria found that putty-nosed monkeys “share the uniquely human ability to string utterances together to convey messages.” Primate psychologists identified two call types – “pyows” and “hacks” – which the monkeys use to alert each other to danger. The BBC reported that a “string of pyows” warned of a nearby leopards while a “burst of hacks” warned of a hovering eagle.
Said one putty-nosed monkey, “If Descartes had visited us in the jungle we would have pronounced our ‘pyows’ and ‘hacks’ s-l-o-w-l-y and c-l-e-a-r-l-y to help him understand us.”
