ORANGUTANS are the “beatboxers” of the rainforest — giving key clues to the evolution of speech.

The apes have been heard making two separate sounds at the same time, just like human beatboxers.

Researcher Dr Madeleine Hardus said: “Humans rarely produce noises simultaneously.

“The exception is beatboxing, a skilled vocal performance which mimics the complex beats of hip-hop music.

“But the very fact that humans are anatomically able to beatbox raises questions about where that ability came from.

“We know now the answer could lie within the evolution of our ancestors.”

A team from Warwick University studied two orangutan populations in Borneo and Sumatra for a total of 3,800 hours.

Males combined two noises in combat and females did the same when sounding a warning.

Dr Adriano Lameira told journal PNAS Nexus: “It could be possible that early human language resembled something that sounded more like beatboxing