At the turn of the 20th century, a famous horse named Clever Hans toured Germany. The horse stunned crowds as his trainer demonstrated the animal's alleged ability to understand German, tell time and ...

Koko the gorilla doted on her pet kitten as if it were her own child. To the amazement of her human handlers, she seemed able to capture the joys and annoyances of maternal love in strings of simple ...

Koko, the western lowland gorilla who learned sign language and became a pop-culture phenomenon, died Thursday morning at the age of 46. The Gorilla Foundation, headed by Dr. Francine “Penny” ...

It's heartwarming when humans gather to celebrate various milestones of furbabies. In an Instagram video, elementary school ...

WOODSIDE, Calif. (AP) — Koko, the gorilla who mastered sign language, raised kittens and once playfully tried on the glasses of the late actor Robin Williams, has died. She was 46. The Gorilla ...

Language was long understood as a human-only affair. New research suggests that isn’t so. Credit...Illustration by Denise Nestor Supported by By Sonia Shah Can a mouse learn a new song? Such a ...

A rescue cat using "sign language" when hungry has taken over TikTok. In a clip shared by user @ohcharliecat on January 24, a ginger tabby called Charlie can be seen putting his paws together and ...

It turns out, some animals really can understand parts of human language. While they may not grasp every word like we do, certain species can pick up on words, tones, and even gestures. This ability ...

When training large language models on human speech, they have the entire history of human communication to pull from. For animals, the amount of good data is much slimmer. Project Ceti’s ( the ...

Robert with Onan signing "hat". Source: Robert Ingersoll, with permission. I recently learned of a book by Robert Ingersoll and Antonina Anna Scarnà titled Primatology, Ethics, and Trauma: The ...

We can all get hangry from time to time, and deer are no exception. Deer may have a reputation for being mild-mannered, but some visitors to Nara Park in Japan have been unfortunate enough to see the ...

Sophie Cohen-Bodénès knew she was onto something when she saw the cuttlefish extend two arms upwards while twisting its six others together. It was making what she calls the “up” sign – and, ...