The trees in the rainforest have huge roots that form large, flat buttresses to support them. Chimpanzees drum on these surfaces with their hands and feet to transmit communication signals that can reach up to a kilometre across the forest. Chimpanzee drumming shares some rhythmic properties with human music, and just as there are various genres of music, different styles of drumming exist among chimpanzees.

An international study published in Current Biology and conducted by researchers from Sapienza University, University of St Andrews and University of Vienna showed that different subspecies of chimpanzee living on opposite sides of Africa produce different rhythms. To reach these conclusions, the researchers compiled a unique dataset on the percussive behaviour of chimpanzees in African rainforests and savannas. The team observed eleven communities belonging to six different populations of chimpanzees, located on the eastern and western sides of the continent.

‘We found that, while West African chimpanzees often drum in an isochronous (regular) manner, East African chimpanzees prefer to alternate between short and long intervals in their drumming; both of these tendencies are also observed in human music,’ says Vesta Eleuteri, lead author of the paper. ’West African chimpanzees also use faster tempos (i.e. beats per minute) than their eastern cousins.’

‘Studies like ours add an important piece to our understanding of the origins and evolution of human musicality,’ says Andrea Ravignani of Sapienza University and senior co-author of the research. ’All animal species can provide useful information for this task, but data on chimpanzees are particularly valuable. The results suggest that humans share with these primates at least one of the crucial elements of rhythm: the percussive behaviour typical of musicality'.

‘Rhythm gives structure to music, and human cultures tend to create music with a wide variety of different musical rhythms,' says Jelle van der Werff of Sapienza. ’The most common is isochrony, which is when sounds follow each other with the exact same amount of time between them: like the ticking of a clock or the bass drum in electronic music'.

‘Our work,' says Catherine Hobaiter of the University of St. Andrews, ‘also provides useful insights into the study of species conservation. Understanding whether different groups of chimpanzees ‘play’ with different rhythms highlights the role they play in the community: when we lose a group of chimpanzees, we also lose their rhythms that make each group unique'.

This research not only has zoological significance: by studying other species’ minds, it is possible to better understand which of our neuro-cognitive abilities are typically attributable to humans.

References:

Vesta Eleuteri, Jelle van der Werff, Wytse Wilhelm, Adrian Soldati, Catherine Crockford, Nisarg Desai, Pawel Fedurek, Maegan Fitzgerald, Kirsty E. Graham, Kathelijne Koops, Jill Pruetz, Liran Samuni, Katie Slocombe, Angela Stoeger, Michael L. Wilson, Roman M. Wittig, Klaus Zuberbühler, Henry D. Camara, Gnan Mamy, Andrea Ravignani, Catherine Hobaiter, “Chimpanzees drum rhythmically and with subspecies variation”, in “Current Biology” (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.019

Further Information:

Andrea Ravignani

Department of Human Neuroscience

andrea.ravignani@uniroma1.it