The discovery comes from experiments showing that an infant chimpanzee prefers to listen to consonant music over dissonant music. That suggests the apes are born with an innate appreciation of pleasant sounds, say scientists in the journal Primates.

Until now, this was thought to be a universal human trait, but the new finding suggests it evolved in the ancestors of humans and modern apes.

Tasuku Sugimoto and Kazuhide Hashiya of KyushuUniversity in Hakozaki and colleagues in Japan tested how a young captive chimpanzee named Sakura responded to music as she aged from 17 weeks to 23 weeks old.

Sakura had been been abandoned by her mother, forcing members of the staff at Itozu-no-moriPark in Fukuoka where she lived to care for her.