Animals which laugh

He also noted that there are other kinds of non-linguistic sounds animals make; these sounds, such as moaning and sighing, perform similar functions in humans. In humans, laughter is innate—deaf infants still laugh—but there is a cultural component to it. Some cultures might simply laugh less than others, Nieder said. But in the animal kingdom, these noises are likely innate and genetically determined rather than learned.

Winkler also said that other species she didn't find may make these play noises, though she tried to be as comprehensive as possible. As such, future discoveries could add members to this list.

Bioacoustics , DOI: They reviewed dozens of prior research "looking for any mentions in any animal of vocal signaling during play" like the panting of the macaques, Winkler said. Their investigation turned up dozens of examples, with reports of vocal play signals "throughout the mammal literature, especially among primates, rodents, social carnivores and to a lesser extent marine mammals," the scientists wrote in the study.

Many of these sounds only occurred during play, such as the purr of a vervet monkey Chlorocebus aethiops , the ultrasonic trill of a rat Rattus norvegicus , the whistle and squawk of a bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus and the peeping of a squirrel monkey Saimiri sciureus. Most primate species, including chimpanzees , gorillas , monkeys and baboons , demonstrated playful laughter: from panting chuckles, lip-smacking and grunts to cackles, trills and squeals, according to the study.

Though most of the laughing animals were mammals, two bird species — the Australian magpie Gymnorhina tibicen and the kea parrot Nestor notabilis — also vocalized during play, the researchers reported. In a study of kea parrots, which live in New Zealand, scientists found that if they recorded keas' warbling laughter and played it through a speaker, other keas "would spontaneously start playing," Winkler said.

That study demonstrated how kea laughter acts as an invitation to other keas, "specifically to facilitate and to initiate play," Winkler said. Reports of playful laughter were notably absent in studies describing fish, amphibians and reptiles, perhaps because there is some question as to whether or not play exists at all in those animal groups, according to the study.

Laughter in humans is thought to have originated during play, a hypothesis supported by the play-related panting laughter of many primate species. Human laughter may have evolved from a similar panting sound that, "over evolutionary time became ritualized into the vocalized 'ha ha ha' that we use today," Winkler said.

People still laugh during play, but we also incorporate laughter into language and non-play behaviors, using laughter in diverse ways to convey a range of emotions that may be positive or negative, the researchers reported.

Human laughter notably differs from other animals' laughter in another important way: its volume. When we think of all the creatures who laugh, humans and hyenas are probably the only ones that come to mind. But recently, scientists combed through the literature and found that at least 65 diverse species of animals produce vocalizations that could be analogous to a human chuckle.

And hyenas are not one of them. Human laughter is a vocalization that signals play, which is an important and complex social interaction, according to anthropologists and cognitive scientists in a recent paper. The 65 snickering species identified vary from our close ape relatives, like chimpanzees or bonobos, to more surprising mammals like slow lorises, sea lions, and orcas. But non-mammals made the list too, specifically three birds: kea parrots, parakeets, and Australian magpies.