Chimpanzees really know how to adapt to a new environment. A new study shows chimpanzees develop the ability to mimic the accents of groups they belong to. The way chimps do this is by changing their grunts.

In 2010, seven chimpanzees were placed in a safari park in Holland along with six adult chimps. A caretaker placed apples in the cage. Newly arrived chimps used high-pitched grunt to communicate with each other.

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The resident chimps grunted at lower pitches. In a span of three years, the new chimps sounded similar to their companions.

"Our study shows that chimpanzee referential food calls are not fixed in their structure and that, when exposed to a new social group, chimpanzees can change their calls to sound more like their group mates," said University of York psychologist Kate Slocombe.

It's still uncertain how the newly arrived chimpanzees were able to match their compatriots. Scientists think it's possible social forces may have contributed to the changes and that chimpanzees may able to easily adapt to another group, especially when they're all inside a cage.

A generational gap between humans and chimpanzees is believed to provide a connection humans and chimpanzees also share a building block of language.

"These findings might shed some light on the evolutionary origins of these abilities. The fact that both humans and now chimpanzees possess this basic ability suggests that our shared common ancestor living over 6 million years ago may also [had this ability]," said Simon Townsend, of the University of Zurich. 

Tagschimpanzees, new environment, generation gap, animal behavior, animal kingdom, adapting to new environment, Language, new language, chimps