Don’t try this at home, but tickling a gorilla, orangutan, bonobo or chimp can inspire bursts of grunting sounds. Yes, that’s laughter, says Marina Davila Ross of the University of Portsmouth in ...

March 31, 2005 — -- We may know what kinds of things make us laugh -- slapstick, a clever pun, an inside joke with an old friend, an April Fools' gag -- but just what are those strange sounds we ...

One morning 10 years ago, psychologist Jaak Panksepp walked into his lab and made an unusual proposition to a research assistant: “Come tickle some rats with me!” Panksepp wasn’t just trying to ...

There’s not a PR firm in the world that could spin the reputation of the rat. They’re aggressive, they’re destructive and they’re everywhere. The global rat population is estimated to be at least 7 ...

Keeper Phil Ridges explains how Emmie the gorilla responds to being tickled Thought it was just humans that are ticklish? Think again - scientists are studying how animals respond to being tickled in ...

If you tickle a young chimp, gorilla or orang-utan, it will hoot, holler and pant in a way that would strongly remind you of human laughter. The sounds are very different. Chimp laughter, for example, ...

Apes often make weird sounds when they're tickled, and some researchers now say these pants and hoots truly are related to human laughter. That's the conclusion of a new study in the journal Current ...

If you tickle a rat's belly, it squeals with laughter. However, we are unable to perceive this laughter as its frequency, around 50 kHz, exceeds the range of human hearing. Neuroscientist Jaak ...

New research has given credence to the idea that laughter evolved in a common ancestor of the great apes and humans. Researchers tickled 22 young apes and three humans and acoustically analysed the ...

Recent research has revealed that animals like dogs, rats, and chimpanzees might exhibit traits similar to human laughter. Patricia Simonet discovered a unique sound in dogs during play, while Jaak ...