Pitch-Aware Marmosets Provide New Model for Human Hearing

The din of what sounds like a high-pitched cocktail party fills the lab of neuroscientist Xiaoqin Wang at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. But the primates making the racket are dozens of marmosets, squirrel-sized monkeys with patterned coats and white puffs of fur on either side of their heads. The animals chatter to each other, stopping to tilt their heads and consider their visitors with inquisitive expressions.