Turns out that chimpanzees and humans are more alike than you may realize. Sure, they share 98.8% DNA already. But besides that, humans and chimps also communicate in a similar fashion.
It turns out, according to a new study, that chimps and humans gesture back and forth with one another in a similar way. Both have a rapid fire gesture, according to to a new study published in the journal Current Biology. The study suggest that both share similar social drives.
"We found that the timing of chimpanzee gesture and human conversational turn-taking is similar and very fast, which suggests that similar evolutionary mechanisms are driving these social, communicative interactions," said first study author Gal Badihi.
Researchers determined the results of the study after analyzing more than 8,500 gestures. They analyzed chimpanzees from five areas in East Africa, finding that 14% of communications involved gestures.
But outside of the similarities between humans and chimps is the remarkable differences between monkeys. Researchers found that chimps had regional dialects in their interactions. Certain variations popped up between groups. "We did see a little variation among different chimp communities, which again matches what we see in people where there are slight cultural variations in conversation pace," added Badihi.
Chimpanzees Have Dialects
"Some cultures have slower or faster talkers," the researcher said. For instance, chimps in Uganda's Sonso community were the slow talkers. They didn't communicate as rapidly as fellow chimpanzees. Apparently, these differences are another similarity between chimps and humans. "Human conversations may share similar evolutionary history or trajectories to the communication systems of other species suggesting that this type of communication is not unique to humans but more widespread in social animals," said Badihi.
