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Joy

A major UCLA study says that at least 65 species of animals laugh

If you've never seen a fox giggle, you're in for a treat.

fox, laughter

Foxes giggle like children on helium.

Laughter is one of the most natural impulses in humans. Most babies start to laugh out loud at around 3 to 4 months, far earlier than they are able to speak or walk. Expressing enjoyment or delight comes naturally to us, but we're not the only creatures who communicate with giggles.

Researchers at UCLA have identified 65 species of animals who make "play vocalizations," or what we would consider laughter. Some of those vocalizations were already well documented—we've known for a while that apes and rats laugh—but others may come as a surprise. Along with a long list of primate species, domestic cows and dogs, foxes, seals, mongooses and three bird species are prone to laughter as well. (Many bird species can mimic human laughter, but that's not the same as making their own play vocalizations.)

Primatologist and UCLA anthropology graduate student Sasha Winkler and UCLA professor of communication Greg Bryant shared their findings in an article in the journal Bioacoustics.



The authors explored various play vocalization sounds, recording them as noisy or tonal, loud or quiet, high- or low-pitched, short or long, a single call or rhythmic pattern.

But really, what we want to see is what animal laughter sounds like from various species, right? While the researchers said that it can be hard to document laughter in the wild, especially among animals with quieter vocalizations, we do have some examples captured on video.

Check out these foxes laughing like little kids:

Or maybe little kids on helium. How fun is that?

Ever seen a bonobo chimp laugh? Just as cute.

I'm not sure if tickling a baby bonobo is sweet or torturous, though these researchers surely know what they're doing. It's always delightful to see the instinctual playfulness of primates.

Laughter in some animals isn't as audibly apparent as it is in these foxes and chimps, though. Researchers from Humboldt University of Berlin found that rats laugh when they are tickled—and appear to enjoy tickling, as they seek it out—but their vocalizations are ultrasonic, so it's hard to hear them without special instruments.

The UCLA researchers shared that the study of laughter in animals can help us better understand our own evolutionary behavior.

“This work lays out nicely how a phenomenon once thought to be particularly human turns out to be closely tied to behavior shared with species separated from humans by tens of millions of years,” Bryant said, according to UCLA.

“When we laugh, we are often providing information to others that we are having fun and also inviting others to join,” Winkler said. “Some scholars have suggested that this kind of vocal behavior is shared across many animals who play, and as such, laughter is our human version of an evolutionarily old vocal play signal.”

Raise your hand if you just want to see a cow laughing for real now.


This article first appeared on 1.14.22

Pop Culture

Here’s a paycheck for a McDonald’s worker. And here's my jaw dropping to the floor.

So we've all heard the numbers, but what does that mean in reality? Here's one year's wages — yes, *full-time* wages. Woo.

Making a little over 10,000 for a yearly salary.


I've written tons of things about minimum wage, backed up by fact-checkers and economists and scholarly studies. All of them point to raising the minimum wage as a solution to lifting people out of poverty and getting folks off of public assistance. It's slowly happening, and there's much more to be done.

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Joy

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Cameron House/Naughty Sheep

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Remember when "goat yoga" was all the rage? And then "cow cuddling" and "turkey cuddling" made everyone's bucket lists?

Now we can add "nuzzling with naughty sheep" to the mix, but with a fancy Scottish twist.

Less than an hour from Glasgow, Scotland, the Cameron House resort sits on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond, looking as if it were plucked straight out of a fairy tale. Sprawling green grounds, gorgeous lake views and a four-story castled mansion greet guests as their "home away from home" (only better), and a perusal of the reviews show guests raving about the 5-star resort's elegance, beauty and exceptional service.

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drone view of cameron house grounds and lakeCameron House sit on Lake Lochmond in Scotland.Cameron House


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Even though it’s rare for humans to strike up such a close bond with a crow, according to research, it’s not that surprising. Audubon says that crows are “some of the smartest animals in the world” with an intelligence “on par with chimpanzees.” They are also very social and family-oriented, so no wonder Russell loves Otto and his family.

Crow Named Russell Waits For His Favorite Kid To Get Home From School | The Dodo


Learning

Why you shouldn't throw your dishwasher pod into the bottom of your dishwasher

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Photos by cottonbro studio and PhotoMIX Ltd. via Canva

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