Coye Camille, Caspar Kai R, Patel-Grosz Pritty
Institut Jean Nicod, Paris, France.
Institute for Cell Biology, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Primates. 2025 Jan;66(1):61-73. doi: 10.1007/s10329-024-01154-4. Epub 2024 Oct 4.
Female crested gibbons (genus Nomascus) perform conspicuous sequences of twitching movements involving the rump and extremities. However, these dances have attracted little scientific attention and their structure and meaning remain largely obscure. Here we analyse close-range video recordings of captive crested gibbons, extracting descriptions of dance in four species (N. annamensis, N. gabriellae, N. leucogenys and N. siki). In addition, we report results from a survey amongst relevant professionals clarifying behavioural contexts of dance in captive and wild crested gibbons. Our results demonstrate that dances in Nomascus represent a common and intentional form of visual communication restricted to sexually mature females. Whilst primarily used as a proceptive signal to solicit copulation, dances occur in a wide range of contexts related to arousal and/or frustration in captivity. A linguistically informed view of this sequential behaviour demonstrates that movement within dances is organized in groups and follows an isochronous rhythm - patterns not described for visual displays in other non-human primates. We argue that applying the concept of dance to gibbons allows us to expand our understanding of communication in non-human primates and to develop hypotheses on the rules and regularities characterising it. We propose that crested gibbon dances likely evolved from less elaborate rhythmic proceptive signals, similar to those found in siamangs. Although dance displays in humans and crested gibbons share a number of key characteristics, they cannot be assumed to be homologous. Nevertheless, gibbon dances represent a striking model behaviour to investigate the use of complex gestural signals in hominoid primates.
雌性冠长臂猿（白眉长臂猿属）会进行一系列引人注目的抽搐动作，涉及臀部和四肢。然而，这些舞蹈很少受到科学关注，其结构和意义在很大程度上仍然模糊不清。在此，我们分析了圈养冠长臂猿的近距离视频记录，提取了四种冠长臂猿（安南白眉长臂猿、加氏白眉长臂猿、白颊长臂猿和西氏白眉长臂猿）舞蹈的描述。此外，我们还报告了一项针对相关专业人士的调查结果，该调查阐明了圈养和野生冠长臂猿舞蹈的行为背景。我们的研究结果表明，白眉长臂猿的舞蹈是一种常见且有意的视觉交流形式，仅限于性成熟的雌性。虽然舞蹈主要用作求偶信号以招揽交配，但在圈养环境中，舞蹈也会出现在与兴奋和/或沮丧相关的广泛情境中。从语言学角度对这种连续行为的观察表明，舞蹈中的动作是成组组织的，并遵循等时节奏——这是其他非人类灵长类动物视觉展示中未描述过的模式。我们认为，将舞蹈概念应用于长臂猿有助于扩展我们对非人类灵长类动物交流的理解，并就其特征规则和规律提出假设。我们提出，冠长臂猿的舞蹈可能是从不太复杂的节奏性求偶信号演变而来的，类似于合趾猿的信号。尽管人类和冠长臂猿的舞蹈展示有一些关键特征，但不能假定它们是同源的。然而，长臂猿的舞蹈是研究类人猿灵长类动物复杂手势信号使用的一个引人注目的模型行为。
