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Chimp's Sex Calls May Reflect Calculation
from the New York Times (Registration Required)
Intricate as the mating dance may be among people, for other primates like chimpanzees and baboons it is even more complicated. This is evident from the work of researchers who report that the distinctive calls made by female chimpanzees during sex are part of a sophisticated social calculation.
Biologists have long been puzzled by these copulation calls, which can betray the caller's whereabouts to predators. To compensate for this hazard, the calls must confer a significant evolutionary advantage, but what?
... [The] study, by Simon Townsend, Tobias Deschner and Klaus Zuberbühler, shows that in making calls or not, the females take the social situation into account.
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