You’re a rat. In a lab. With people in odd white coats walking around you. It’s not funny! Or is it?
“Having a sense of humour would certainly help rehabilitate a heap of lab rats,” laughs PhD student of biological anthropology Sasha Winkler. “Rats are great. They have a rat laugh. If you tickle them, they make these high-pitched ultrasonic sounds.”
Not everything about Mother Nature is fight or flight. It turns out that many of our animal cousins find time for a chortle.
Take a walk in any urban park on a summer’s evening. You’ll almost certainly hear children giggling and screaming as they romp together.
But what’s that sound coming from the magpies cavorting under the sprinkler, or the funny noise being made by dogs gambolling over a ball? Could it be a chuckle? A guffaw? Or are we just superimposing our own expectations over what we observe?
“I think there’s enough evidence that we’re seeing other animals demonstrate social bonding signals, and they’re reflecting positive emotional signals,” says University of Melbourne animal welfare researcher Dr Mia Cobb.
“That sounds very scientific of me to describe it that way.