August 13, 2010 12:00 PMScientists who analysed video footage of orangutans amassed over 20 years, claim the creatures are able to explain things to each other, and humans, via mime.
The boffins say they found 18 occasions in which orangutans used "elaborated gestures of pantomime" to get what they wanted.
Examples ranged from rubbing a leaf on their forehead and then passing it to a human as an instruction to clean them, to holding an object over their head because the want an umbrella passing to them.
Professor Anne Russon said the finding could offer new insight into the evolutionary origins of human language.
Which is all well and good… but what we want to know is when will the world's first inter-species charades tournament take place.
Russon - of York University in Toronto - added that if the mime is not understood by a human the orangutans get a look on their faces as if to say ‘Are you stupid?
http://newslite.tv/2010/08/13/orangutans-use-mime-to-communi.html
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