Laughter is one of the joys of life and it helps us connect, which may be why we play peekaboo and tickle games with babies. Whether animals share our sense of joy has been a hot topic in research.
Chimpanzees and orangutan laugh when playing together and both species play tickle games, with older animals tickling the young, and infant apes tickling each other when roughhousing.
Happy chimpanzees make very distinctive hooting sounds, and both great apes laugh with open mouths, just like we humans do.
Rats also play, especially tickle games. While humans have tickly feet, ribs and underarms, young rats have sensitive necks.
When they play, they aim for the nape and tickle – with the babies pulling tickle faces and making ick-ick-ick sounds.
Shockingly, research into whether cats laugh appears to be non-existent.
We know that cats don’t meow at each other very much. Therefore, pet cats have invented an entire language of meows, yips, and chirps solely to communicate with their humans.
As for the laughter, cats are notoriously ticklish, especially on the tummy and in their paw pits. However, anyone daft enough to tickle a furry tummy will get a smack. As such, tickle games are not part of cat culture.
Pouncing and stalking games are very feline, though. Cats playing with each other and with us make lots of noises and they pull faces too. Is it spontaneous laughter? Until science starts investigating, it is up to cat lovers to decide.
