Sometimes animal memes are so hilarious that we wish we could share them with our pets. But even though our furry friends might not understand them in the same way we do, research suggests some animals actually have a sense of humor.
That’s what Isabelle Laumer, a post-doctoral researcher at UCLA, and her team discovered in a recent study. After watching over 75 hours of videos featuring great apes, they found these intelligent animals have a playful side and enjoy teasing each other with practical jokes.
Great apes, which include orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas, are our closest living relatives. In the study, the apes were filmed in zoos during their daily routines. The researchers noticed that all four species engaged in teasing behaviors, such as poking, hitting, and pulling on each other’s body parts. Some even waved objects in front of their fellow apes’ faces or pulled their hair.
“What we saw often was that a juvenile would sneak up behind an adult that was busy grooming another ape, and proceed to poke them or hit them on the back, sometimes even surprising them,” explains Laumer in an article for the BBC.
“They’d then wait and watch for the adult’s response. Usually, the target would just ignore them, and so they’d persist in their teasing, making the behaviour more and more elaborate and difficult to ignore, until they sometimes ended up slamming the adult with their entire body.”
According to researchers, the teasing among apes is similar to the playful behavior seen in human children. It’s intentional, persistent, and often includes an element of surprise, much like sticking your tongue out at someone and then running away to see their reaction.
This playful behavior might even lay the groundwork for more complex humor. “Joking in humans requires quite complex cognitive abilities,” says Laumer. “You need theory of mind (the ability to imagine the world from someone else’s perspective), knowledge of social norms, the ability to anticipate others’ responses and to appreciate the violation of other’s expectations,” she adds.
But it’s not just our closest animal relatives who like to have a good giggle. If you’ve ever watched dogs playing, you might have noticed they make a sound that resembles laughter, and you’d be right!
According to the American Kennel Club, this “doggy laugh” is a breathy exhale through their mouth. It’s a way for dogs to communicate during play, whether they’re starting a game of chase or play-bowing.
Interestingly, research shows that, just like in humans, laughter is beneficial for dogs. A study led by Patricia Simonet examined how the sound of dogs laughing affected other dogs at a shelter in Spoke, Washington. By playing recordings of these happy noises, researchers found that dog laughter helped reduce stress and encouraged more positive social behavior among the shelter dogs.
Meanwhile, other researchers have observed that dolphins make joyful sounds while they’re play-fighting, and elephants trumpet with excitement during their playtime, writes Jasmin Fox-Skelly. Parrots also like to join in on the fun by teasing other animals, like whistling at and puzzling the family dog.
Even rats enjoy an occasional laugh! For over a decade, Jeffrey Burgdorf at Northwestern University has been tickling rats to study their reactions. As surprising as it may be, these little critters make high-pitched squeaks that sound like giggles when they’re tickled. They keep coming back for more and can even play hide and seek for a “tickling reward,” according to research from Humboldt University in Berlin. Burgdorf and his team are now using these findings to help develop new treatments for depression.
