By Stephen Beech
Different chimp troops drum with "distinct" rhythms, reveals new research.
The primates use regular spacing between beats, according to the study.
The "exciting" findings suggest that the ability to drum rhythmically may have existed long before humans evolved, say scientists.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, was conducted by an international team, including Scottish scientists.
They found that eastern and western chimpanzees - two distinct subspecies - drum with distinguishable rhythms.
The researchers say their findings suggest that the "building blocks" of human musicality arose in a common ancestor of chimps and humans.
(Current Biology/Eleuteri et al via SWNS)
Study lead author Doctor Vesta Eleuteri, of the University of Vienna, Austria, said: “Based on our previous work, we expected that western chimpanzees would use more hits and drum more quickly than eastern chimpanzees.
“But we didn't expect to see such clear differences in rhythm or to find that their drumming rhythms shared such clear similarities with human music.”
Earlier studies showed that chimps produce low-frequency sounds by drumming on buttress roots - large, wide roots that grow above the soil.
The research team suggest that the chimps use the percussive patterns to send information over both long and short distances.
Dr. Eleuteri said: "Our previous study showed that each chimpanzee has their own unique drumming style and that drumming helps to keep others in their group updated about where they are and what they’re doing - a sort of way to check in across the rainforest.
“What we didn’t know was whether chimpanzees living in different groups have different drumming styles and whether their drumming is rhythmic, like in human music.”
Dr. Eleuteri and her team, including co-senior author Professor Catherine Hobaiter of the University of St. Andrews, teamed up with other chimp researchers to study 371 drumming bouts in 11 chimpanzee communities, including six populations and two subspecies.
(Current Biology/Eleuteri et al via SWNS)
After analysing the drum patterns, they found that chimps drum with rhythm and that the timing of their hits is non-random and often evenly spaced.
Eastern and western subspecies also exhibited different drumming patterns with western chimpanzees using evenly spaced hits, while eastern chimpanzees more often alternated between hits at shorter and longer time intervals.
The team also found that western chimpanzees hit their “drums” more, using a faster tempo, and integrated their drumming earlier in their pant-hoot vocalizations.
Hobaiter said: “Making music is a fundamental part of what it means to be human - but we don’t know for how long we have been making music.
“Showing that chimpanzees share some of the fundamental properties of human musical rhythm in their drumming is a really exciting step in understanding when and how we evolved this skill."
She added, "Our findings suggest that our ability to drum rhythmically may have existed long before we were human."
