After enjoying a delicious meal, do you feel like bursting into song? Perhaps a quick verse from the movie, Oliver – ‘Food, glorious food, hot sausage and mustard,’ would do nicely. Usually, singing is the last thing we think of doing after eating, unless it’s some karaoke with our friends. However, it has been recently discovered that gorillas actually hum their own songs when they are eating food together. This is no early April Fool’s joke. It’s true.

Wild gorillas are found in the forests of Africa, just south of the Sahara Desert. They can live until they are about forty years of age. If kept in a zoo, they often live for fifty or more years. The oldest living gorilla known to man was called Colo. She was the first gorilla to be born in captivity. She died in 2017 aged sixty at Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio, United States of America. She had lived there for her whole life.

Eva Luef has spent much of her life studying gorillas. Recently, she watched groups of them in the Republic of the Congo in West Africa. She became aware that the gorillas made two different kinds of sounds when they were eating. The first was very deep and like someone making the kind of noise that expresses happiness. The second sound was similar to a human humming a tuneless song as they walked along the street.

After listening to the gorillas for long periods of time, Eva discovered that the gorillas did not sing the same song over and over again. It appeared that they composed their own songs, making a different one up with each meal they ate.

An expert from Toronto Zoo in Canada agrees with Eva. Ali Vella-Irving has said that gorillas regularly hum songs when they are eating food in a group. Each gorilla has its own voice. When listened to carefully, it is possible to identify the individual voice of each gorilla. Eva also found that when gorillas were eating their favourite food, they hummed louder than usual.

It is now believed that the humming may be a way for the head of the gorilla group – a dominant male – to tell the other gorillas that it is time to eat. Perhaps it may also be a way for the gorillas to express their appreciation of the food.

Question:

Listen to the gorillas sing in the wild

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