A captive chimp's instrumental performances hint at the evolution of vocal externalization

In February 2023, a resident at Kyoto University's Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior—EHUB—treated researchers to a spontaneous musical performance. Ayumu, a 26-year-old male chimpanzee, removed floorboards from a walkway and used them to drum while he let out complex and structured sounds similar to vocal expressions. It was something the researchers had never seen him do before.