Primate animals also know how to laugh

A study in the UK showed that all large primates could laugh like humans. This is further evidence that humans and primates have common ancestors.

Dr. Davila Ross and a chimp in Zambia.Photo: AP.

Many scientific studies show that laughing is the instinctive behavior of people, because it appears in every culture and every age. People who are dumb, deaf, blind since birth or isolated from human society know how to laugh. So many scientists think that laughter has appeared since our ancestors were still gibbons. However, no one has found evidence to confirm that hypothesis.

Marina Davila Ross - the study primate and psychologist of the University of Portsmouth (UK) - and her colleagues conducted a study of laughing behavior of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobo monkeys, orangutans and humans. They tickled the neck, feet, hands and armpits of newborn and mature individuals. They recorded more than 800 sounds that the research object emitted after being tickled.

After analyzing the differences and similarities in sound, scientists have established the 'sound evolutionary scheme' of all five species. It is quite similar to the evolutionary scheme of primates. 'We conclude that all the sounds that 5 species produce have the same origin,' explained Davila Ross.

Primate animals, including young and mature, all laugh when they play or tickle each other.Photo: National Geographic.

Davila Ross asserts that most of us can distinguish people's laughter from the laughter of primates. According to her, people's laughter has many characteristics because we evolved faster than primates in the past 5 million years. But there is an unanswered mystery why primate animals laugh?

'I really want to know the role of laughter in the life of primates, especially the differences from humans , ' said Davila Ross. Previously, the researcher said that chimpanzees know how to laugh, but they do it when breathing in air and exhaling. Meanwhile people only exhale when laughing.

However, Davila Ross and colleagues found evidence that most primates laugh, not just chimpanzees. Laughter of gorillas and bonobo monkeys have many human-like characteristics. For example, they only smile when breathing out and the time of exhalation is 3-4 times longer than normal breathing. Previously, the scientific community thought that such behavior of controlling breathing time - played an important role in the development of speech - was only available in humans.

The combination of facial expression, breathing and sound of all 5 species when smiling brought the research team to a conclusion: The laughter of humans dates from 10-16 million years ago and originated from primates. Today, both humans and primates emit laughter when they play and tickle each other.