Monkey vocab richer than thought

"Hack hack hack pyow hack hack" might not mean much to human ears, but to a putty-nosed monkey it means, "I'm adult male X; I have just seen an eagle; I will now move away," according to a new study showing that primates can combine individual calls to express different meanings.

While such syntax-like behavior has been described in other species, such as whales and dolphins, the new findings are the first to clearly demonstrate the skill in a non-human primate.

"What our research shows is that individual calls do not carry any specific meanings, but different call sequences do," co-author Klaus Zuberbuhler told Discovery News.

Read full story at Discovery News.