🌿 Environment Apr 16, 2026 · Liz Kimbrough

A chimpanzee’s rhythmic drumming with floorboards hints at origins of instruments

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A chimpanzee’s rhythmic drumming with floorboards hints at origins of instruments
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Drumming and singing at the same time is impressive, whether you’re Karen Carpenter, Ringo Starr or a chimpanzee. Japanese researchers report that Ayumu, a 26-year-old male chimpanzee and alpha of his group at Kyoto University’s Institute for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior (EHUB), has been spontaneously tearing floorboards from a walkway, fashioning them into instruments and performing extended drumming displays while vocalizing. “I was surprised,” primatologist Yuk

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