Dr. Catherine Hobaiter and Professor Richard Byrne who are researchers at St Andrews University have decoded more than 5,000 messages of Sonso chimpanzee.

These researchers from St Andrews University studied Sonso chimpanzee community in the Budongo reserve in Uganda for this study. They then formulated a sort of glossary of 66 gestures of chimpanzees. This glossary helps understand the expressions of the animal and also proves that they engage in meaningful communication.

The team identified 19 specific messages the chimpanzees make to each other and it was observed that these animals don't use language like humans to communicate; instead, they make gestures to each other to relay specific information.

Some of the specific gestures that the researchers were able to clearly identify included: tearing leaves off plants with their teeth indicating the apes are flirting with each other, grabbing means the primates are saying 'stop that,' 'climb on me,' and 'move away', a mother chimpanzee showing the sole of her foot to her baby as a signal for the offspring to climb on her back.

"Like humans, apes do not gesture or vocalize in isolation, their communication combines calls, gestures, facial expressions, and body postures", said Dr. Catherine.

The main result that the researchers derived out of this whole study is that besides humans, there is another species is the world that too carries out meaningful communication. In all, 66 different gestures of chimpanzees were identified that they used in communication. This study was published in the Current Biology journal.