Lemur uses opera singer's trick to belt out forest songs
We are often left open-mouthed in awe as an opera singer hits a soaring top note. Now, researchers at the University of Warwick have found that the indri, the world's only known singing lemur, appears to use a strikingly similar vocal technique to hit high notes.
In the realm of vocal adaptation, an unexpected similarity has emerged between opera singers and wild indri lemurs. Researchers at the University of Warwick have discovered that these forest-dwelling primates employ a vocal technique akin to the formant tuning used by human singers. According to a new study published in PLOS Computational Biology, the higher the pitch of an indri's song, the wider its mouth opens to amplify the sound, allowing the vocalization to carry through the dense forest canopy.
This fine-tuned coordination between mouth movements and song pitch suggests that indris have independently evolved a convergent adaptation to enhance their communication capabilities, much like trained human vocalists.
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