Gibbons are famed for their graceful agility high in the forest canopy. Swinging effortlessly from branch to branch, their bodies spilling through the trees, the small apes seem to defy the basic laws of gravity. But it turns out their beauty in motion doesn’t stop there: They also perform captivating dances, according to the findings of a new study. It documents the dance routines of four species of crested gibbons native to the dense but rapidly diminishing forests of mainland Southeast Asia. The researchers say the movements aren’t random gyrations. Rather, the gibbons are using their rhythmic vogueing routines of up to two minutes at a time as a visual communication tool. Biologists have long known that female crested gibbons perform sequences of peculiar and sudden rump, arm and leg twitches, both in captive settings as well as in the wild. A 2016 study, for instance, likened the dance of wild eastern black-crested gibbons (Nomascus nasutus) to the timeless human “robot dance.” However, the structure and circumstances surrounding the gibbon’s dance have remained largely shrouded in mystery. A northern white-cheeked gibbon at Mulhouse Zoo (left) and a female yellow-cheeked gibbon with young at Amsterdam Zoo (right). Images courtesy of Miriam Lindenmeier (l) and HHU/Kai R. Caspar (r). To unlock the secrets of the gibbon bop, Camille Coye, a postdoctoral researcher at the Jean Nicod Institute in France, and her colleagues from Germany and Norway meticulously scrutinized 37 videos of female crested gibbons kept in captivity at zoos and rescue centers…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Article by:
This story first appeared on Mongabay
South Africa Today – Environment
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
