World

The drummers puff out their chests, let out a guttural yell, then step up to their kits and furiously pound out their signature beat so that everyone within earshot can tell who is playing.

The drum kit is the giant gnarled root of a tree in the Ugandan rainforest — and the drummer is a chimpanzee. 

A new study published Tuesday found that not only do chimpanzees have their own styles — some preferring straightforward rock beats while others groove to more freeform jazz — they can also hide their signature sound if they do not want to reveal their location.

The researchers followed the Waibira chimpanzee group in western Uganda’s Budongo Forest, recording the drum sessions of seven male chimps and analysing the intervals between beats. 

The chimps mostly use their feet, but also their hands to make the sound, which carries more than a kilometre through the dense rainforest. 

The drumming serves as a kind of social media, allowing travelling chimpanzees to communicate with each other, said Vesta Eleuteri, the lead author of the study published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

The PhD student said that after just a few weeks in the rainforest she was able to recognise exactly who was drumming.

“Tristan — the John Bonham of the forest — makes very fast drums with many evenly separated beats,” she said, referring to the legendarily hard-hitting drummer of rock band Led Zeppelin.

Tristan’s drumming “is so fast that you can barely see his hands”, Eleuteri said.

– Hiding their style –

But other chimps like Alf or Ila make a more syncopated rhythm using a technique in which both their feet hit a root at almost the same time, said British primatologist Catherine Hobaiter, the study’s senior author.

The research team was led by scientists from Scotland’s University of St Andrews, and several of the chimpanzees are named after Scottish single malt whiskies, including Ila — for Caol Ila — and fellow chimp Talisker.

Hobaiter, who started the habituation of the Waibira group in 2011, said it long been known that chimpanzees drummed.

“But it wasn’t until this study that we understood they’re using these signature styles when they’re potentially looking for other individuals — when they’re travelling, when they’re on their own or in a small group,” she told AFP.

The researchers also discovered that the chimps sometimes choose not to drum in their signature beat, to avoid revealing their location or identity.

“They have this wonderful flexibility to express their identity and their style, but also to sometimes keep that hidden,” Hobaiter said.

Michael Wilson, a specialist on chimpanzees at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the research, said the study’s methodology was sound.

But he was not “completely convinced, though, that the drumming is sufficiently distinctive that you could reliably tell all individuals apart,” because some patterns seemed very similar, he said, calling for more research.

– ‘A sense of music’ –

While plenty of animals produce sounds we think of as music — such as birdsong — the research could open the door to the possibility that chimpanzees enjoy music on a level generally thought to only be possible for humans. 

“I do think that chimpanzees, like us, potentially have a sense of rhythmicity, a sense of music, something that touches them on an almost emotional level, in the way that we might have a sense of awe when we hear an amazing drum solo or another kind of dramatic musical sound,” Hobaiter said.

Most research on the culture of chimpanzees has looked at their tools or food, she said.

“But if we think about human culture we don’t think about the tools we use — we think about how we dress, the music we listen to,” she added.

Next the researchers plan to investigate how neighbouring and far-off communities of chimpanzees drum in their own differing styles.

Hobaiter has already been looking at chimpanzees in Guinea, where there are very few trees to drum in the open savannah.

“We’ve got early hints that they might be throwing rocks against rocks” to make sound, she said.

“Literal rock music in this case.”

The decarbonisation plans of some of the biggest corporations from G7 nations put Earth on course to heat a potentially catastrophic 2.7 degrees Celsius — blowing Earth well past the Paris Agreement temperature goals, analysis showed Tuesday.

As more and more firms announce their intention to become carbon neutral by mid-century at the latest, scrutinising corporate claims of green action is increasingly important to check whether they are aligned with the latest climate science. 

CDP, a non-profit that runs a global disclosure system for companies to manage their environmental impacts, looked at the climate plans of more than 4,000 firms across the world’s seven largest economies.

They found that current plans would lead to a world by 2100 that is 2.7C hotter than currently — a far cry from the temperature goals of the 2015 Paris deal, which enjoins nations to limit warming to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels. 

Europe was the best performer, with rapid action since 2021 likely to have “cooled” the temperature prediction some 0.3C, the analysis showed. 

Businesses in Canada, on the other hand, were the worst performing in terms of decarbonisation plans, with 88 percent of reported greenhouse gas emissions coming from firms that have no disclosed net zero plans.

Across all regions and sectors, only the European power generation sector achieved a temperature rating below 2C, driven by targets from renewable and nuclear energy companies.

Many companies have plans in place to reduce emissions directly produced from their business operations, such as vehicle exhausts and office heating.

Far fewer have plans covering emissions produced by the consumption or use of their products and which often count for most of their carbon footprints.

Companies in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands had policies to reduce their emissions across their entire value chain, which equated with a 2.2C temperature rise, according to the CDP.

“However, despite this progress, the average temperature ratings for corporates remain well above 1.5C across all major European economies,” it said.

French football giants Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday faced accusations of failing to take climate change seriously, after coach Christophe Galtier and star Kylian Mbappe mocked a suggestion that they should take the train rather than private planes for short-haul travel.

Galtier and Mbappe were asked at a press conference on Monday whether they had discussed an offer from the state railway group SNCF to provide travel for them to away games.

Galtier initially smirked at the idea while Mbappe bent double in laughter over the suggestion — with the clip quickly going viral on social media.

“We had a chat with our travel organisers earlier to see if we can travel by sand-yacht,” Galtier replied sarcastically, referring to sail-powered beach buggies that are popular on some French beaches.

Politicians, campaigners and even the prime minister weighed in on Tuesday, condemning both men for being out-of-touch and arrogant at a time when Europe faces an energy crisis and spiralling temperatures linked to climate change. 

“I think it’s important that they realise what world we live in, that they are aware that there is a climate crisis that is no longer a hypothesis about tomorrow but a reality today,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told reporters while visiting a Paris police station. 

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire called Galtier’s response “inappropriate” while Paris’ left-wing mayor Anne Hidalgo tweeted: “It’s not on to answer stuff like that???? Wake up guys??? This is Paris.”

– Private jets –

The controversy began over the weekend when PSG notched up an easy 3-0 away victory against Nantes to stay top of Ligue 1 on their trip to the French city, which is 380 kilometres (240 miles) west of Paris but located on a high-speed train line.

The side — owned by an investment fund of major gas producer Qatar — boasted on social media that they had made the return trip with shirt sponsors Qatar Airways, but their travel choice was publicly questioned due to its carbon footprint.

“Paris-Nantes is less than two hours by TGV,” Alain Krakovitch, the head of SNCF’s TGV high-speed passenger trains, wrote on Twitter afterwards.

“I renew our proposal for a TGV offer adapted to your specific needs in line with our common interests — safety, speed, services and eco-mobility,” he added.

The PSG team recently went by road to a clash with Lille, the club said, and may also take the coach for other upcoming matches.

The Qatar-owned club takes “security, public order, logistical problems and the environment” into consideration when planning travel, it said. 

The controversy comes against the background of a growing clamour in France from environmental campaigners for restrictions on private jet travel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Pressure group Attac had on Friday pilloried PSG’s Argentinian star Lionel Messi for his use of private air travel.

“From June to August, Messi made 52 flights with his private jet, amounting to 1,502 tons of CO2 emissions. That’s as much as a single French person would be responsible for in 150 years,” it said.

Star French attacker Karim Benzema also faced criticism over the summer for posting a video from his holidays in Miami which flaunted his wealth — and carbon footprint — with sports cars, jet skis and motor boats.

Many teams in the top Spanish, Italian and English leagues, including Juventus and Liverpool, regularly travel by train.

– Role model? –

Communication experts said they were amazed at the insensitivity of the PSG manager’s reply on the same day that President Emmanuel Macron was urging French people to lower their air conditioning and heating to save electricity.

Europe faces an energy crunch this winter after Russia cut its gas deliveries to the continent.

The press conference behaviour was a rare faux pas for World Cup-winning posterboy Mbappe who has forged a reputation as a mature, socially-minded player despite his young age of just 23.

“I have no thoughts,” he replied in the press conference when asked for his view on the train travel option.

Contacted by AFP, his representatives declined to comment on Tuesday.

“It is a devastating blow to his image,” Frank Hocquemiller, an agent for several French international footballers, told AFP. “Footballers need to understand that if you are a role model, or in his case an icon, everything carries great importance.” 

French climatologist Valerie Masson-Delmotte said she wanted Mbappe to set an example.

“What he says, what he does, these things have an influence far beyond what scientists might say or do, because he inspires so many people,” she told France Inter radio.

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