Vocal tract modeling as a tool to investigate species-specific cues in vocalization.

Recent works emphasize the importance of acoustic cues of species-specificity in primate vocal communication. The potential of vocal tract resonance in generating these cues is examined by anatomically based vocal tract computational modeling. True lemurs (genus Eulemur), which occur in Madagascar, show a remarkable species diversity and this makes especially good model species to study these inter-specific differences. The oral vocal tract of lemurs is relatively flexible, but the nasal tract also plays a crucial role in their communicative system. We analyzed distinctive formant characteristics as produced by the computational models in order to investigate inter- and intra-specific variation in the vocal tract size and shape. Differences in morphological features between lemur taxa have an influence on shaping structural characters of their vocalizations.