(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

ANCHOR LAUREN ZIMA

New research suggests chimps will go out of their way to fill their friends in if they missed something important. While gossiping chimps might not sound like a big deal, it has huge implications for understanding cognition and language.

Researchers did their study by using fake vipers to scare the daylights out of wild chimps. They laid the vipers in the path of chimps moving through the jungle. When one stumbled across the fake snake, it made hoo-ing sounds to clue the others in on the danger. (Video source: Current Biology)

Now, lots of animals make warning calls when they see a threat. But what’s interesting with the chimps is exactly when they made the calls. A writer for io9 explains.

“As the newcomers arrived, the first set of chimps noticed them and repeated the ‘alert hoo’, making sure they also knew about the snake. Crucially, the chimpanzees hadn't just been constantly sounding the alarm -- the call had stopped when it was clear all the chimps knew about the snake, and then started up again when a newcomer showed up.”

The chimps seemed to understand who knew about the snake and who didn’t. Knowing other creatures have different thoughts than you is actually a big cognitive step. A writer for TG Daily explains.

“Recognizing another individuals' knowledge and beliefs is known as the ‘theory of mind’ -- and it's long been unclear whether it's unique to human beings. Most animal studies have been conducted in captivity and have yielded conflicting results.”

Without a theory of mind, human beings wouldn’t be able to wrap our heads around the misunderstandings in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Othello,” or for that matter, an episode of “Three’s Company.” And now, some researchers think, we also would never have developed language.

This release from the Max Planck Institute, which was involved in the study, explains.

“Some scientists suggest that providing group members with missing information by means of communication is a crucial stage in the evolution of language: why inform audience members if you do not realize they need the information?”

If that theory is true, it would suggest these complex abilities developed at least 6 million years ago, before chimps and humans split in the evolutionary tree -- way earlier than previously believed. The BBC quotes a zoology professor, who explained:

“This study gives us some insight into how this amazing ability may have evolved … In the wild, faced with a natural stimulus, our close cousins the chimps alter their communication depending on what other chimps know. It appears that humans aren’t quite so unique, after all.”