ANIMALS TALK AND TELL LIES, EXPERT SAYS.

Byline: Associated Press

Animals have elaborate languages which can identify food, distinguish between threats - and are even used to tell lies, say scientists meeting in San Francisco.

Peter Marler, a University of California at Davis researcher considered one of the world's top animal communications experts, told the conference at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park that animals lie for the same reasons many humans do - sex.

Field researchers in Africa have observed male vervet monkeys attracting females by uttering the vervet word for ``food,'' Marler said.

Just as some human females discover that their blind date's BMW is a rusting Chevy and his ``high-powered job'' is the night shift at a fast-food restaurant, the female vervet rushes up to the male and discovers the ``food'' is a twig or leaf.

When they're not trying to pick up a mate, vervets have an elaborate way of distinguishing between various threats, Marler said.

The vervet monkeys utter one type of cry when threatened by a snake; another when attacked by a leopard; and yet another when assaulted by an eagle, he said,

That way, Marler explained, their fellow vervets will know where to hide: say, in a tree, far above the snake; or in a bush, where the eagle can't reach them.

For centuries, scientists have wondered whether the animal world's cacophony of clucks, tweets, woofs, meows and cock-a-doodle-doos are primitive forms of language.

Or are they just meaningless grunts, peeps and squeals that creatures utter automatically?

The contentious science of ``animal communication'' peaked in the 1970s. Back then, scientists claimed they had trained primates how to communicate with sign language.