The first evidence of within-species dialects among neotropical primates has been revealed.
Stella de la Torre at the University of San Francisco Quito, Ecuador, and Charles Snowdon at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, recorded the vocal patterns of adult pygmy marmosets (Callithrix pygmaea; pictured) from 14 groups found in five geographically distinct regions of northeastern Ecuador. Although variation among the calls of adults from the same region was common, they discovered consistent structural differences in calls between regions.
The authors suggest that social factors, genetic drift and habitat acoustics — with different sounds being needed to best transmit information through different forest habitats — could explain the differences.
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Behaviour: Marmo-what?. Nature 457, 515 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/457515b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/457515b
