Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Have you
Speaker 1: ever tried to tell a joke to an animal? I've
Speaker 1: done it before, I talked to my dogs, whatever. But
Speaker 1: this this is brain stuff and I'm Christian Seger. So
Speaker 1: here's the question. Can animals laugh? In some cases this
Speaker 1: might sound ridiculous. There are many different types of laughter,
Speaker 1: and generally speaking, these types fall into two broad categories,
Speaker 1: complex social laughter, where you have to know the context
Speaker 1: or have a sense of humor to you know, get it,
Speaker 1: and laughter in response to stimulation like tickling. Some animals,
Speaker 1: such as primates, seem to have a sense of humor,
Speaker 1: meaning they can respond to situations with a pant that
Speaker 1: sounds eerily similar to laughter. You can read numerous stories
Speaker 1: about Coco the gorilla allegedly making jokes in sign language
Speaker 1: and so on. Additionally, when adult animals like dolphins or
Speaker 1: ravens play pranks, they're indicating an understanding of humor. But
Speaker 1: laughter itself seems more common than humans had originally thought.
Speaker 1: Rats have been laughing their furry little keysters off since
Speaker 1: the dawn of recorded history, but we only figured this
Speaker 1: out a few years back. It turns out rats like
Speaker 1: being tickled and when they're tickled, they chirp at a
Speaker 1: range too high for human ears to pick up. It's
Speaker 1: around fifty kila herds. We know this thanks to the
Speaker 1: work of Jacques Panskep and Jeffrey Bergdorff beginning in the
Speaker 1: late nineties at Bowling Green State University. And if we're
Speaker 1: talking about that second category of laughter, a positive vocalization
Speaker 1: associated with touch, then the comedy floodgates may have just
Speaker 1: swung open. Dr de Villa Ross has been gathering as
Speaker 1: much data as possible about the reactions various animals have
Speaker 1: to being tickled. The list of animals that make a
Speaker 1: vocal reaction when tickled include mere cats, camels, dolphins, dogs, owls, penguins,
Speaker 1: and more So. What's the explanation, Well, according to Michael O. Wren,
Speaker 1: an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience from Georgia State
Speaker 1: University that's my alma mater, the case may be simple,
Speaker 1: at least when applied to mammals. It's just a pleasant
Speaker 1: feeling evoked by touching. Laughter it seems may well be
Speaker 1: millions of years old and existed before human beings. If
Speaker 1: you think about it, we're sort of late to the joke,
Speaker 1: and to be fair, most scientists aren't calling this straight
Speaker 1: out laughter. Instead, they're suggesting that these positive vocalizations, or
Speaker 1: as Dr de Villa Ross writes, expressions of joy. And
Speaker 1: when we ask whether laughter is a sign of intelligence,
Speaker 1: Dr pank Stp notes that intelligence isn't a requirement for laughter. Instead,
Speaker 1: he suggests maybe we should look at it from another direction.
Speaker 1: Perhaps play in any species can increase social intelligence. As
Speaker 1: research continues, we're learning more and more about animals, laughter,
Speaker 1: and pep. Check out the brainstuff channel on YouTube, and
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com