04-02-05 @ 9:19 am EST

Found the CUTEST article at Yahoo! News! ^_^

No Joke: Animals Laugh, Too

Thu Mar 31, 2:19 PM ET Science - SPACE.com/LiveScience.com

Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
LiveScience.com

Life can be funny, and not just for humans.

Studies by various groups suggest monkeys, dogs and even rats love a good laugh. People, meanwhile, have been laughing since before they could talk.

"Indeed, neural circuits for laughter exist in very ancient regions of the brain, and ancestral forms of play and laughter existed in other animals eons before we humans came along with our 'ha-ha-has' and verbal repartee," says Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University.

When chimps play and chase each other, they pant in a manner that is strikingly like human laughter, Panksepp writes in the April 1 issue of the journal Science. Dogs have a similar response.

Rats chirp while they play, again in a way that resembles our giggles. Panksepp found in a previous study that when rats are playfully tickled, they chirp and bond socially with their human tickler. And they seem to like it, seeking to be tickled more. Apparently joyful rats also preferred to hang out with other chirpers.

Laughter in humans starts young, another clue that it's a deep-seated brain function.

"Young children, whose semantic sense of humor is marginal, laugh and shriek abundantly in the midst of their other rough-and-tumble activities," Panksepp notes.

Importantly, various recent studies on the topic suggest that laughter in animals typically involves similar play chasing. Could be that verbal jokes tickle ancient, playful circuits in our brains.

More study is needed to figure out whether animals are really laughing. The results could explain why humans like to joke around. And Panksepp speculates it might even lead to the development of treatments for laughter's dark side: depression.

Meanwhile, there's the question of what's so darn funny in the animal world.

"Although no one has investigated the possibility of rat humor, if it exists, it is likely to be heavily laced with slapstick," Panksepp figures. "Even if adult rodents have no well-developed cognitive sense of humor, young rats have a marvelous sense of fun."

Science has traditionally deemed animals incapable of joy and woe.

Panksepp's response: "Although some still regard laughter as a uniquely human trait, honed in the Pleistocene, the joke's on them."

Isn't that the most adorable thing?? Chirping laughing ticklish rats!! ^_^ I have never wanted another rat so much in my life!!

I don't see it as such a leap to think that animals can laugh. You don't need to understand the concept of humor to laugh; you just need to be happy. And how can science "traditionally deem" animals to be incapable of happiness or sadness? I thought it had been proven that animals can be happy and sad. Why do dogs grow despondent when their owners, family, or fellow dogs are gone for a long time? (It could have been just me, but after our cat Pepper died, the rat, Katchoo, seemed awfully sad and mopey in her absence--and they had not known each other very long at all.) Why do cats rush to the door and jump purring into their owners' arms? (Pepper used to do this. Katchoo, as well, would jump up and out of her cage when I opened it, and would leap up onto people's shoulders. So sad that she did not live very long. -_- ) Why when you get out a favorite toy, does a pet bounce around excitedly? (Cue Cosmas, who bounces off the walls--literally sometimes!--when I get him catnip, or toss his toy mice, or pass by with ANYTHING that dangles. He also tackles my legs and tries to keep me from going to bed when he wants to play!) The very concept of FUN implies the capacity to feel happiness, and pets have been having FUN for ages. Why the hell else would they do such stupid things as chase fake mice and fetch squeaky toys??

One could always bring out the old argument that it's mere evolutionary/instinctive behaviors--they play to train their hunting skills, etc.--but keep in mind that these are still domesticated animals, and have lost many of their instinctive reactions. (Our cat does not even KILL the mice he occasionally catches--HE PLAYS WITH THEM!) And it seems as if that even when these reactions are obviously not warranted, the pets will still react in such a manner. A dog will fetch a stick even when it has a bowl full of food, and a cat will play with a fake mouse even when its own source of food is known to be in the next room. If the only reason pets do such silly things is because of instincts, then I hope somebody will explain why humans skydive or jump on trampolines or...heaven forbid...surf online. *shudder*

I'm starting to lose the meaning of this entry. O_o Ever see that old National Geographic article on animals at play? That's the best article I can think of at the moment. It has pictures of a raven sliding down a snowy hill on its back, climbing back to the top, and sliding down again. (What instinctive behavior would THAT be mimicking??) It has the typical pictures of young animals frolicking, and best of all, it has the photos of a great polar bear ambling up to a chained husky dog, and the two of them...PLAYING with each other!! That's right, this huge wild polar bear, which the article itself says likely hasn't eaten in a while, and this domesticated sled dog--the dog wagged its tail as the bear approached, and greeted it happily, and the bear apparently understood the gesture...because they then started clambering all over each other, the dog jumping on the bear and the bear wrapping the dog up in a hug. I wish the photos were online, they are so adorable. Neither animal came to any harm, BTW. (What instinctive behavior would THAT be for either animal?? Seeking your own likely death??)

So, of course animals should be able to laugh. They've probably been laughing at us for years. ^_^