Looking the ape in the eye – Cooperative eye hypothesis questioned

The white of our eye is something special. The sclera is devoid of pigment, which is why we can easily follow where our counterpart is looking. Nature has arranged it this way to facilitate this kind of glance-based communication. That is at least the traditional notion among scientists. A team of zoologists based at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) and the Anthropological Institute in Zurich is now challenging this traditional view in a new study. The researchers looked at communicative behavior and eye color in apes and question the proposed connection between the two phenomena. The results have just been published in the international journal ‚Nature – Scientific Reports‘.*

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft