Sometimes, it's a good thing when animals fight?

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Author: Earth's Gravity (Popular Science Creator)

Producer: China Science Expo

Editor's note: In order to decode the latest mysteries of life science, the China Science Popularization Frontier Science Project has launched a series of articles called "New Knowledge of Life" to interpret life phenomena and reveal biological mysteries from a unique perspective. Let us delve into the world of life and explore infinite possibilities.

Anyone who has kept pets at home or often watches documentaries such as "Animal World" knows that whether they are cats, dogs or primates, they are extremely energetic when they are young and like to play or fight with each other.

In fact, this kind of play is essential for developing the physical and cognitive abilities that animals need to survive and reproduce, not only in the animal world but in ours as well.

Animals playing

(Photo source: veer photo gallery)

How do animals play?

Animal behaviorists believe play can be divided into three main categories.

The first is social play , which encompasses any playful behavior involving other individuals.

The second is locomotion , which involves running, walking, leaping, and pouncing, and helps develop lifelong motor skills. For animals destined to become prey, locomotion helps them develop tactics to evade predators, such as antelopes leaping high when running in groups, landing in places that predators cannot predict.

In contrast, young predators, such as lion cubs, use sport play to hone their hunting abilities. Chasing and tripping siblings, then biting their spines or throats, are skills lion cubs practice as they subdue prey by severing their spinal cords or suffocating them.

Adult lion and cubs

(Photo source: veer photo gallery)

The third major category of games is object games , which incorporate objects from the environment into the play, or the object can also be another animal. For dogs, this kind of object is a branch or a ball. For cats, any string, insect, bird or other small animal, or even their own tail can become a small toy.

cat and toys

(Photo source: veer photo gallery)

In addition to these, there are two other types of play that exist among larger primates (including humans).

The first is formal games that resemble competitions and combine social, athletic, and object play. For example, sports such as soccer, hockey, lacrosse, and polo are examples of traditional games that have become formal sports with specific rules (among nonhuman large primates, only individuals raised in a human environment play formal games).

Another type of play that occurs only in large primates is pretend play . For example, a wild chimpanzee might carry a small stick and pretend it is a baby. Human children might interact with invisible toys in this way.

In addition to entertainment, play is also very useful

First, playfulness is a test for animals before taking risks. For example, sometimes a lion cub will deliberately give up some control over its body, which puts it at a disadvantage and allows other cubs to successfully pounce on it.

This playfulness helps the animals learn to recover from a loss of balance and increases their ability to cope with unexpected stressful situations. For the animals, the goal of playfulness is not to win but to learn and improve skills.

Once a pup is attacked by a sibling the roles may be reversed, with one sibling beginning to self-restrain and allowing the other sibling to pounce on it. Self-restraint is risky and requires trust, but it is an excellent way to develop strength and agility and is a great exercise in building cooperation.

For example, in wolves living in packs, sometimes the dominant wolf will slow down to allow a close mate to catch up and attack it. In elephants, there are older male elephant calves who crouch down and let a much younger cub fight them. This is similar to the older brother not using all his strength in an arm wrestling match to let the younger brother win.

Elephant Herd

(Photo source: veer photo gallery)

Playfulness also builds trust: Thomas Bugnyar of the University of Vienna in Austria and his colleagues found that ravens pretended to bury highly valuable food and then observed the reactions of other ravens, apparently to determine who they could trust.

For animals, learning early on to distinguish between rivals and potentially reliable collaborators gives them a distinct advantage, a skill that benefits them whether they want to gain allies, build coalitions within a group, or repair broken relationships.

Finally, playfulness can also repair the relationship between animals. Scientists have observed that the relationship between two female elephants who grew up in an elephant herd has always been extremely tense, so much so that one of them left the herd. However, as this female elephant left the herd to give birth to offspring, and returned to the original herd with her offspring, the two female elephants inevitably came into contact with each other because of the playfulness between the offspring throughout the herd. As a result, to the surprise of the scientists, the relationship between the two female elephants was not as tense as before, but instead showed a certain degree of tolerance and friendship.

Conclusion

Playfulness not only benefits animals, but also us humans, so we can learn a thing or two from them.

The next time you feel like you're too busy to relax at work or too reserved at a family gathering, take some time to play a few games with your coworkers or family members. You might just feel more connected.