The drumbeats are let out in short bursts across the rainforest — a deep but quick staccato. The Nimba Mountains of Guinea provide a spectacular backdrop for the short performance, with their tall peaks and deep valleys, yet it’s the performers themselves — chimpanzees — that have researchers flocking to the forests.
The apes there have a habit of drumming on the tops of roots that stretch from the base of tree trunks. Jane Goodall and others have long assumed that this behavior represents a form of communication between chimps. But researchers didn’t empirically test the hypothesis until recently.
