MONKEYS are the undisputed kings of yodelling, research shows.
They were found to have a frequency range five times greater than humans.
And their voices can cover more than three octaves — while even the Swiss or Austrian masters of the art struggle to cover just one.
It is down to the unique structure of their throats and gives them a rich variety of calls for communicating with other monkeys.
Researcher Jacob Dunn said: “These ultra-yodels might be particularly important in primates, which have complex social lives and need to communicate in a variety of different ways.”
The findings are from a British and Austrian research team’s study of monkeys in a wildlife sanctuary in Bolivia, South America.
It examined their thin vocal membranes, which sit above the vocal cords.
They have been lost in humans as we evolved more stable speech.
Latin American species of howler monkey, capuchin squirrel monkey and Peruvian spider monkey have the largest membranes of all primates.
They switch from using their vocal cords to the membrane to effect rapid switches in frequency — just like an Alpine yodeller or king of the jungle Tarzan.
Professor Dunn added: “It’s highly likely this has evolved to enrich the animals’ call repertoire, and is potentially used for attention-grabbing changes, call diversification, or identifying themselves.”
Lead author Dr Christian Herbst, of the University of Vienna, said: “This is a fascinating example of how nature provides the means of enriching animal vocalisation, despite their lack of language.
“The production of these intricate vocal patterns is mostly enabled by the way the animals’ larynx is anatomically shaped, and does not require complex neural control generated by the brain.”
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