Monkey first learned to "speak"

Scientists have managed for the first time to teach primates to reproduce human speech sounds, "This opens up for us the opportunity to learn more about the vocal abilities of early hominids that lived before the separation between the ancestors of orangutans and humans, and see how the system has evolved to a vocal speech full of people," - says study author Adriano Lamer from Durham University.

The main participant in the experiment was the orangutan named Rocky. Researchers played with him in the game during which the monkey received the reward for correct reproduction sound. As shown by a comparison with the sounds learned Rocky szvukami with which it gather communicate in nature, orangutan is able to learn and can control the utterance sounds like a man.

In total during the experiment, the monkey learned over 500 new sounds.