Chatty Cathy Macaque

From the Discover Magazine blog (creationists, plug your ears):

"Female macaques are much chattier than male macaques, according to a new study. The researchers say vocal communication is an important part of macaque social bonding and the findings may reflect similar patterns in the evolution of human language."

Not only that, but:

"The researchers also found that the females preferred to chat with other females [and suggest that] this is because female macaques form solid, long-lasting bonds as they stay in the same group for life and rely on their female friends to help them look after their offspring. In contrast, males, who rove between groups throughout their life, chatted to both sexes equally."

What? Baby monkeys being raised by two (or more!) mama monkeys? Uh, I don't know how comfortable I am with that. It sounds kind of, you know, gay. Whatever happened to one man monkey + one woman monkey monkey marriage? Somebody needs to get all Prop 8 on their same-sex preferential asses if you ask me.