Chimpanzees have been exposed as big cry-babies by researchers from Scotland. When chimps are attacked they scream based on the severity of the attack. However Katie Slocombe and Klaus Zuberbuhler found that some of the sneaky animals lie about how bad the attacks actually are.

“If no-one is there to help them then the screams are normal but if someone is about then they make it sound even worse than it is. This shows there is more flexibility in their vocal communication than previously thought,” Slocombe says (BBC).

In their PNAS paper the researchers identify four types of aggression, ranging from threatening behaviour to outright beating. Victims of aggression changed the acoustic structure of their screams depending on which type of aggression they experienced. Higher aggression brought forth longer, higher frequency screams. A kind of “Get your hands off of me, you damned dirty ape.”

Slocombe and Zuberbuhler say their data provide “the first systematic empirical evidence to show that nonhuman primates are able to exaggerate distress to manipulate other group members”.

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