By VICTORIA GILL - BBC NATURE
Added: Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:05:44 UTC

The chimps made soft "hoo" sounds to warn individuals that had not seen the threat

Chimpanzees appear to consider who they are "talking to" before they call out.

Researchers found that wild chimps that spotted a poisonous snake were more likely to make their "alert call" in the presence of a chimp that had not seen the threat.

This indicates that the animals "understand the mindset" of others.

The insight into the primates' remarkable intelligence will be published in the journal Current Biology.

The University of St Andrews scientists, who carried out the work, study primate communication to uncover some of the origins of human language.

To find out how the animals "talked to each other" about potential threats, they placed plastic snakes - models of rhino and gaboon vipers - into the paths of wild chimpanzees and monitored the primates' reactions.

"These [snake species] are well camouflaged and they have a deadly bite," explained Dr Catherine Crockford from University of St Andrews, who led the research.

"They also tend to sit in one place for weeks. So if a chimp discovers a snake, it makes sense for that animal to let everyone else know where [it] is."

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TAGGED: BEHAVIOR, SCIENCE