At the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., Bonnie the orangutan
has been amazing researchers with her special talent: Bonnie
knows how to whistle. Those notes are a symphony to the ears of
primate researchers who believe her musical abilities could lead
to a greater understanding of how human speech evolved. "I think
what makes it significant is that you can train apes to whistle,
but no one trained her to do it. She decided to do it on her
own," says Erin Stromberg, who works in the National Zoo's Great
Ape house and helps care for the orangutans. Stromberg helped
publish a recent paper on Bonnie's talents. Researchers believe
Bonnie was trying to imitate the sounds of zookeepers who
whistle while they work. Stromberg says Bonnie's ability to copy
that sound is powerful evidence that apes can re-create the
sounds of other species. "So what's significant about Bonnie
learning to whistle is not that she's able to do it, it's that
she saw someone else do it and just picked it up," Stromberg
says. Bonnie is 32 yea