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Can Chimpanzees whistle?

Soapy Sam

Penultimate Amazing
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I was pondering the idea of memes last night, which led me to language and the various experiments to teach apes to speak or understand language, when I suddenly wondered (as one does)- Has anyone ever tried to teach apes to whistle?
Chimps have at least as much lip muscle control as humans, probably more. You don't need vocal cords to whistle and many animals show some enjoyment of music.

It seems an obvious experiment, but I never heard of it being tried.
Anyone?
 
I guess the first question would be "do chimps make any non-melodic noises naturally that could be described as having similar mechanics to a whistle?"

I don't know the answer to that either.

Anyone else?
 
Never heard of it - and Chimps are studied and reported on an awful lot!!

And, on doing a quick net search, other than mentioning whistles used by trainers, the only other mention was of Keeli and Ivy (Ivy specifically) watching a student whistling and trying (unsucessfully) to imitate him. No positives.
 
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I hadn't even found that one.
I'm not expecting to hear of Nim Chimpsky whistling Wagner, even a wolf whistle would be interesting. Starlings can do that!
 
While we're at it, can a chimp play a mouth harp?
 
I don't know about whistling chimps, but I know that dogs can't look up.



(10 geek points for the refernce, 150 for the story behind it)
 
The cube next to mine may contain irrefutable evidence that they can. His favorite tune is apparently "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" He almost constantly whistles it, poorly, when he's surfing the web.

However, proving that he is indeed a chimpanzee may be difficult, because I'm sure the chimpanzees wouldn't acknowledge that this butt-scratching, nose-picking poorly-groomed slob is a member of their species.
 
brodski said:
I don't know about whistling chimps, but I know that dogs can't look up.



(10 geek points for the refernce, 150 for the story behind it)
Click to expand...
Enjoying Shaun of the Dead makes me a geek?

I get off on much more geekier things than a good zombie movie.....
 
EHocking said:
Enjoying Shaun of the Dead makes me a geek?

I get off on much more geekier things than a good zombie movie.....
Click to expand...

But getting the Shaun of the Dead refernce only gives you 10 geek points (and with geek inflation these days that’s not worth much), the other 150 are related to something else, which relied heavily on (UK) geek humour…
 
brodski said:
But getting the Shaun of the Dead refernce only gives you 10 geek points (and with geek inflation these days that’s not worth much), the other 150 are related to something else, which relied heavily on (UK) geek humour…
Click to expand...
So Spaced doesn't figure at all, this is a gamer's thing, isn't it?

I feel better already.

I only know the penguin and turkey looking up ULs.
 
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