Wildlife

Leopard Losses

Conservationists and officials in India say they are alarmed at the staggering loss of 106 leopards during the first two months of this year alone in forested areas of the country.

Only 12 of the big cats appear to have died of natural causes, while many of the other deaths are being blamed on poachers who hunt the animals for their prized hides and other body parts.

Officials say habitat loss, especially due to expanding agriculture, is also a growing threat to the leopards.

Monkeys speak in Syllables

German researchers studying the evolution of human speech have discovered that all of the calls produced by marmoset monkeys are made up of individual syllables of fixed length, similar to humans.

While it’s rude to interrupt other people when they are speaking, the team from Germany’s University of Tübingen interrupted the small monkeys in the study with white noise, causing them to fall quiet in the middle of their vocalizations.

The scientists found that among the “tsiks,” “ekks,” “phees” and other sounds uttered by the South American marmosets, the animals would stop only at specific points within the call.

This revealed the primates communicate with individual syllables much like humans, who speak with syllables that are about a seventh of a second long on average.