The Singing Lemur: Mammal Has Common Musical Characteristics Similar to Humans

A new study recently revealed something new they discovered about the singing lemur as they described songbirds sharing the human sense of rhythm.

This is an odd trait though, Good News Network reported, "in non-human mammals" and now, it's been discovered that the indri lemur can be added to the short list of animals known to appreciate a sense of beat, says MPI's Andrea Ravignani, who is leading an international research group that set outs out to search for musical skills in primates.

She added that searching for musical traits in other species "allows us to build an evolutionary tree" of musical traits and understand how rhythm capacities originated and developed in humans.

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Sense of Rhythm in Mammals

To determine if non-human mammals have a sense of rhythm, the researchers examined a few singing primates, specifically the critically endangered lemur Indri Indri.

To find out whether non-human mammals have a sense of rhythm, the research team decided to study one of the few 'singing' primates, the critically endangered lemur Indri indri, as described in the Lemurs of Madagascar site.

Additionally, the study authors wanted to find out if indri songs have definite rhythm, the so-called "rhythmic universal" found across the cultures of human music.

Rhythm is considered categorical when intervals between sounds have precisely the same 1:1 rhythm or duration, or 1:2 rhythm or doubled duration.

This rhythm type makes a song that can be easily recognized, even if it is the sun at different speeds. Would indri song songs show this distinctively human tempo or beat?

Male and Female Songs with Different Tempo

Over 12 years, the scientists from Turin in Italy went to the forest of Madagascar in collaboration with a local primate study group. The research team recorded songs from 20 indri groups totaling 39 animals, that live in their natural habitat.

As a result, the indri family members are inclined to sing together in harmonized duets and choruses. The researchers also discovered that the indri songs had the classic rhythmic classifications, both 1:1 and 1:2, and the typical "ritardando" or slowing down detected in some musical traditions.

In a similar report, The Great News specified that male and female songs "had a different tempo" although they showed the same rhythm.

Study's first author Chiara de Gregorio and her colleagues said this is the first evidence of a "rhythmic universal," in a non-human mammal. The question now is, why should another primate generate categorical "music-like" rhythms?

Such an ability may have progressed independently among singing lemurs, as the last universal ancestor between humans and indri lived more than 77 million years ago. Rhythm may make it simpler to produce and process songs or even learn them.

Categorical Rhythms

Ravignani explained that categorical rhythms are only one of the six universals that have been identified thus far. She added, they would like to search for evidence of others, which includes an underlying "repetitive" beat, as well as the beats' hierarchical beats, in indri, as well as in other species.

Lastly, the study investigators encouraged other scientists to collect data on indri and other endangered species to witness their breath-taking singing displays.

Related information about the singing lemur is shown on Rhett Butler's YouTube video below: