Science Vs - Monkey Say What? LEOPARD!!

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Science isn’t always dressed up in fancy lab coats and goggles — sometimes it goes undercover! In this episode, we go behind the scenes in the Congolese rainforest to show you just how down and dirty scientists are willing to get to answer their questions. We find out how the putty-nosed monkey might be chattier than we thought — and what all that monkey gab could mean. Researcher Frederic Gnepa Mehon gives us the scoop. Here’s a link to our transcript: https://bit.ly/3jM6EtC This episode was produced by Ekedi Fausther-Keeys and Taylor White with help from Wendy Zukerman, Rose Rimler, Nick DelRose, Michelle Dang, and Meryl Horn. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Our voice actor is Shaka Mali. Interpreting by Dania Suleman, written translation by Ngofeen Mputubwele. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Music written by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, Bobby Lord and Bumi Hidaka. A huge thanks to all the researchers we got in touch with for this episode, including Dr. Claudia Stephan, Professor Klaus Zuberbühler and Dr. Kate Arnold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Steve Strogatz. And this is... Quantum Magazine's podcast, The Joy of Why. New episodes drop every other Thursday, starting February 1st. Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus from Gimlet. Today on the show, the tale of scientists going incognito. They're putting their life on the line to decode a secret language. To find out all about it, let's meet Frederic Gnepa-Mehon.

He works for the Wildlife Conservation Society Congo Program in the Nubale Ndoki National Park in the Congo. OK, I'm Frederic. I work in the Congo. Oh, and in case you missed it, he speaks French. That's the secret language we're decoding. No, no, there's a different language. To help you with the French, we've got a voice actor. So Frederique is working deep in the rainforests of the Republic of Congo. Where we are is a wild forest. The humidity, I think, is probably 80 or 90 percent. You're covered with bees,

with butterflies. There are elephants, gorillas and chimpanzees. And among these animals is the star of today's show, the putty-nosed monkey. These monkeys are about the size of a cat. They've got black fur and this awesome nose. It kind of looks like someone grabbed some white putty and then smushed it onto the monkey's face. Hence the name putty-nosed monkey. These monkeys collect fruits and seeds from trees and then store them in their pudgy cheeks for later.

And Frederic has spent a lot of time around the forest with these monkeys. I grew up in nature. I always heard the screams of monkeys. And it was these screams that captivated Frederic. The monkeys made all these weird noises. And Frederic wanted to know, why? Why are they making these noises? Like, what are they talking about? Are they just yelling at each other? Or is something bigger going on? I told myself, huh, so those bizarre screams I heard, is it possible those are announcing danger? And that's what interests me. And I threw myself into the research. Frederic figured that these monkeys have different predators, eagles, wildcats. So he thought, could they be warning their friends about them?

Saying, hey, watch out, danger. And he wanted to test it. So he picked one of the most deadly predators to these monkeys, the leopard. If a leopard sees a monkey up in a tree, they'll sneak up on them, climb up the tree and then pounce, snatching them up and eating them. So Frederick needs a leopard for his study, but he couldn't just dial 1-800-LEPARD and rent one. So instead, he went to the local market. We had the idea to take a leopard-colored fabric, and that's what we did.

And then they took that fabric and played dress-up. One special scientist was picked to drape the fabric over themselves so that they could pretend to be a leopard. This was total Halloween style. And Frederic was super excited to play the role of a lifetime. I did do it. I did do it. I was the example for the team. I was the first to do it. The idea was that they, the scientists, were going to mimic a leopard and then see if the monkeys reacted by making some specific sound. And to capture that sound, they set up mics around the forest where the monkeys tend to hang out. So this all sounds delightful, right? A bunch of scientists running around in leopard print. But it turns out it's actually really dangerous because leopards have a lot of enemies, including gorillas. When they spot you, they will directly attack you. That's clear.

Wow. A gorilla can beat a leopard in a fight? Of course. The gorilla will kill a leopard in a minute. It will kill him on the spot. Well, sometimes a real leopard will give a gorilla a run for its money. But a scientist in a leopard suit? Not so much. So. With scouts keeping their eyes peeled for animals like gorillas, the experiment can begin. At one point, the leopard costume is on one scientist. And when the coast is clear, the nerd sneaks up on the monkeys.

You're sweating hard. You have to get on all fours. A male monkey spots the fake leopard. He races down the tree and freaks out, just as if it was a real leopard. He starts breaking branches and basically just trying to scare the leopard leopard. He races down the tree and freaks out, just as if it was a real leopard. He starts breaking branches and basically just trying to scare the leopard away. So the male, when he sees it, he descends. He gets very agitated. And amongst all the hullabaloo,

the researchers catch it. A sound. And that's when we were able to record the kek. Here it is. Frederic wondered, were the monkeys really saying leopard? The team repeated the experiment in different ways. And every time a male saw the leopard,

which was almost 20 times in total, there it was. Kek. Kek. And they're pretty sure that that sound didn't just mean, oh no, human in a leopard suit. Because in the middle of the experiment, an actual leopard strolled past. A real one. And yet again, a monkey made that kek noise. When it arrived, the monkey spotted it and began to vocalize.

The exact same scream that we noticed. The same unexpected scream, which really confirmed our hypothesis. We took the recording to another putty-nosed monkey researcher, and she said that she'd actually heard a similar sound from a group of monkeys in Nigeria, but they seem to use the call a little differently. So it looks like we're in the early days of understanding this monkey's ABCs. In Frederic's work in the Congo though, he's heard two other calls of these monkeys. Like when they see an eagle, he says they often say ah ah. And then there's a sound they use more generally to warn their friends about a variety of predators. It's piao piao. So we've got three screams.

Piao piao, lulu hop hop, lulu kick. Do-do-hop-hop, do-do-skate. More and more, scientists are working out what animals are singing and screaming about. We now know that other kinds of monkeys can also warn their friends when different kinds of predators are about. Some monkeys can even give false warning signals, yelling, there's danger, possibly just to get their tribe to scatter so they can steal some food.

And monkeys aren't the only ones having all the fun. One study showed that marmots and squirrels can listen in on all the hot tea that birds are tweeting about and they can recognise the alarms that they use with each other. As for Frederic, he says that this all opens the door to understanding language more generally. Like, if these monkeys have the brainpower to shout different words for different predators, why can't their brains go the whole hog, say full sentences, make podcasts? That's his next question. But for us, we had our own important next question.

Do you ever wear the leopard costume to scare friends? In the camp, yes. We pull pranks with it. We pull a lot of pranks. So sometimes in the daytime when I return home from work, I wait. I see people. I put on the leopard costume and I hide in the forest. Once the first one spots me, he yells out, leopard, leopard.

And they all run. And then I come out and I say, well, it's me. It's not a leopard. It's pranks like that all the time. Science in action. That's Science Versus. This episode was produced by Kedi Foster-Keys and Taylor White, along with the rest of the Science Versus team.

Our voice actor is Shaka Mali. Interpreting by Daniel Sulman. Written translation by Gophen Mputuwele. Full credits are in our show notes. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.