Birds and monkeys in the Amazon share information via ‘internet of the forest’: new research

Ettore Camerlenghi, Deakin University and Ari Martínez, University of California, Santa Cruz

You might go for a walk in the forest to disconnect from work and calm your nerves after a busy week. The chirping and calls of birds in the canopy above might be exactly what allows you to relax.

But what sounds soothing to humans may signal danger to other animals – and trigger fear across the forest.

In our research, published today in Current Biology, we show that when some animals spot a predator they issue a warning cry that is picked up by others and spread through the rainforest canopy. For a time, different species are linked into a shared information network, and parts of the forest briefly fall silent.

Birds and monkeys

During an expedition to a remote area of the Peruvian Amazon, working with a falconer, we used trained raptors to trigger warning calls from birds and primates. We recorded the calls then played them back into the forest and monitored how the community responded.

We already knew that birds sometimes repeat the warnings of others – occasionally even those of different species, or of primates. What we wanted to know was how widespread this behaviour is across the animal community.

Researchers released birds of prey in the Amazon rainforest to study how the alarm calls of other animals travel through the ‘internet of the forest’.

We discovered that alarm calls produced by small bird species – those weighing less than 100 grams – were most often passed on. Other small birds living in the canopy were the most likely to relay the call, but other animals joined in too.

Larger species, including capuchin and spider monkeys, sometimes responded as well. Two canopy species in particular – the black-fronted and the white-fronted nunbirds – stood out as especially likely to repeat and propagate the warnings of their neighbours throughout the forest.

Sounds and silence

Alarm calls from species living in the forest understorey were far less likely to spread and be propagated by other birds or primates.

However, even when these alarm calls were not repeated, they changed the forest’s soundscape. Small canopy birds almost completely stopped singing after hearing a predator alert. At the same time, animals in lower forest layers often continued to make sounds despite the perceived threat.

Together, these findings suggest that the Amazonian canopy is not only the rainforest’s most mysterious layer – largely unexplored and home to much of its biodiversity – but also functions as an information highway, like a fibre-optic network through which animals rapidly share signals of danger.

A new layer of the ‘internet of the forest’

In the past decade, the idea of an “internet of the forest” has become popular through the concept of the “wood wide web”, where plants exchange resources and information via root systems and fungal networks. Our work points to another communication system, one operating high above the ground.

Suspended above our heads is a vast ecosystem where animals constantly listen to one another, forming an eavesdropping network that spreads critical information within seconds.

The vocal activity of birds is usually associated with finding mates and defending territories. However, we now know that sometimes this activity, or lack of it, may represent pulses of a soundscape of fear.

Next time you walk through a rainforest, look up and listen to the birds. A sudden silence may mean a raptor is gliding somewhere above the canopy.

Ettore Camerlenghi, Associate Research Fellow, Avian Behaviour, Deakin University and Ari Martínez, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→April 21, 2026

Surgeons Perform First-Ever Surgery for Critically-Endangered Monkey Weeks Before She Gave Birth

Chester Zoo via SWNS

GNN often stays abreast of births among the Chester Zoo’s incredibly diverse residents of rare and endangered species, but few have ever been cuter or rarer than this Roloway monkey.

Chester Zoo is one of only two places in the UK that Roloway monkeys can be found, a spokesman said, and the breeding population there supports the animal as conservationists ponder what to do to ensure it can survive in its West African home.

The mother is named Masaya, and before the 15-year-old primate gave birth to a daughter named Lagertha, she was the first ever Roloway monkey to undergo surgery in captivity—to remove a golf-ball sized abscess from her foot.

Masaya had to have one toe amputated during the procedure, which was done at the University of Liverpool’s Small Animal Teaching Hospital.

“Masaya is a very experienced mom and she’s parenting magnificently,” said

Zoe Edwards, primate keeper at Chester Zoo. “The fact Masaya’s foot has healed so well is a huge relief. If she’d had a [full] amputation, we’d have been left with real questions about whether she could hold her offspring or continue with her normal behaviors.”

Roloway monkeys originate from West Africa and are listed as Critically-Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Once common in the lush rainforests of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, the Roloway monkey now survives only in isolated pockets of old-growth forest.

The baby’s name is Lagertha – credit, Chester Zoo via SWNS

Masaya at the Liverpool Vet. Hospital where she underwent surgery – credit, Chester Zoo via SWNS

Chester Zoo witnessed the first birth of a Roloway monkey in captivity in 2020, and Lagertha is the 3rd to be born since then. Edwards said it marked an important moment in the species’ conservation. There are only a few breeding females in zoos in Europe, and only one other in England at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park.

Masaya had experienced recurring problems with her foot since she came to the zoo in 2023. It was determined to be an abscess, and when the swelling worsened in 2025, the decision was made to take Masaya to Liverpool for a CT scan.

“It’s not every day you take a monkey to vet school,” said Charlotte Bentley, Veterinary Officer at the zoo’s Animal Health Center. “Following the scan, we decided an operation was the way forward.”

According to the New England Primate Conservancy, the Roloway monkey is now considered one of the most urgently threatened primates in the entire world. A big-bodied monkey, they have been hunted to such small populations that, ironically, they’re now considered too uneconomical to pursue anymore, and so have inadvertently gained a short respite from poaching.

he conservancy admits that the most likely chance for survival is for breeding programs like the one at Chester to continue the propagation of the species until such a time as their native forests in Ghana and the Ivory Coast can be appropriately and reliably protected from poachers and logging. Surgeons Perform First-Ever Surgery for Critically-Endangered Monkey Weeks Before She Gave Birt

Read More........→March 22, 2026