7 
Van de Vliert proposes a comprehensive explanation for differences in freedoms in diverse human populations based on climate and monetary resources. This intriguing approach, though derived from an evolutionary view covering all species, is based exclusively on human populations. This anthropocentric lens is challenged by ways of testing Van de Vliert’s thesis more generally using […]
6 
In this quick guide, Gordon Burghardt considers the criteria for ascribing a particular animal behavior as “play “, and in particular the evidence for play in fishes, frogs and reptiles. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
3 
Robbing and dodging is a well-documented food protective behaviour in rats. Recently, we demonstrated that a simple cybernetic rule, gaining and maintaining a preferred interanimal distance, can account for much of the variability in dodging by rats. In this paper, the field cricket, Teleogryllus oceanicus, was used to test whether or not the same or […]
7 
Play and playfulness are enigmatic from an evolutionary perspective as it is not obvious that they provide any survival or reproductive benefits. Indeed, animals engaged in play can be injured or even killed, waste energy that could presumably be better put to other uses, or open themselves to predation through reduced vigilance. Play fighting can […]
9
Rough-and-tumble play, also called play fighting, is a form of play in which partners compete with one another to gain some advantage (e.g., strike, bite, push onto ground), but do so without the severity or consequences of serious fighting, which it resembles (Aldis, 1975). Play fighting is one of the most commonly reported forms of […]
1 
Although play occurs in a wide variety of animals, models of the origins of play behavior are lacking. We propose a novel computational model exploring the evolution of non-social frivolous play. Asexually reproducing semelparous animals can either rest or forage. Foraging occurs when an organism is below an energy threshold. Success is determined by the […]
5 
Social learning is considered one of the hallmarks of cognition. Observers learn from demonstrators that a particular behavior pattern leads to a specific consequence or outcome, which may be either positive or negative. In the last few years, social learning has been studied in a variety of taxa including birds and bony fish. To date, […]
7 
Giving captive animals the opportunity to interact with objects in a “playful ” manner is often considered a method of environmental enrichment. However, the occurrence of play in nonavian reptiles is controversial and poorly documented. Similarly, the role of environmental enrichment in fostering psychological well-being in reptiles has been little studied. For several years, an […]
2 Psychological, clinical and neurobiological findings endorse that empathic abilities are more developed in women than in men. Because there is growing evidence that yawn contagion is an empathy-based phenomenon, we expect that the female bias in the empathic abilities reflects on a gender skew in the responsiveness to others’ yawns. We verified this assumption by […]
10 
To the best of our knowledge, the basic biological values of all mammalian brains were built upon the same basic plan, laid out in consciousness-creating affective circuits that are concentrated in subcortical regions, far below the neocortical “thinking cap ” that is so highly developed in humans. Mental life would be impossible without this foundation. […]
1 
Lekking male greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) compete with neighbours not only by strutting to attract females but also by directly challenging othermales. These challenges include approaching another male and adopting an anti-parallel orientation at close quarters (‘facing past encounter’) and fighting, in which the birds strike one another with their wings. Facing past encounters and […]
6 
Whether play occurs in fishes has long been a contentious issue, but recent observations document that social, object, and locomotor play can all be found in some species of teleosts. However, quantitative studies and those documenting individual differences are rare. We recorded hundreds of occurrences of an unusual behavior in three male Tropheus duboisi. The […]
9 
Introduction to the book: The brain of cephalopods rivals that of the vertebrates in relative size, being as large as or larger than the brains of many fish, although smaller than those of birds and mammals (Hochner, 2008). The elaborate sensory and neural system in many extant cephalopods enables them to exhibit complex types of […]
7 
Pre-clinical models of brain affective circuits provide relevant evidence for understanding the brain systems that figure heavily in psychiatric disorders. Social isolation and the resulting separation distress contribute to the onset of depression. In this work, the effects of excitatory amino acids (EAA) on isolation-induced distress vocalization (DV) were assessed in young domestic chicks. Both […]
3 
Lemurs share a common distant ancestor with humans. Following their own evolutionary pathway, lemurs provide the ideal model to shed light on the behavioural traits of primates including conflict management, communication strategies and society building and how these aspects of social living relate to those found in the anthropoid primates. Adopting a comparative approach throughout, […]
3
In the socially polymorphic spider Anelosimus studiosus, males mature early in the reproductive season and recruit to the webs of juvenile females and guard them until they mature. During the period before females mature, males and females engage in repeated bouts of non-conceptive (play) sexual behavior, where the pair courts and engages in mock copulation; […]
6 
The social play of magpies consists of play fights, play chases and other less frequent interactions involving hanging from branches and elements of sexual behaviour. play fighting accounted for 60- 80% of social play and was analysed in detail. Two main forms were identified, fast and slow play fights. The latter accounted for 20% of […]
6
In many mammal species, precocious sexual behaviour is a component of play. A recent model for the evolution of play fighting behaviour in muroid rodents by PELLIS (1993) proposes that social play in those species has its origin in precocious sexual behaviour. Captive juvenile emydid turtles perform precocious sexual behaviour. After reviewing its occurrence, we […]
9 
Although signs of empathy have now been well documented in non-human primates, only during the past few years have systematic observations suggested that a primal form of empathy exists in rodents. Thus, the study of empathy in animals has started in earnest. Here we review recent studies indicating that rodents are able to share states […]
4
Head and foot coordination of juvenile magpies occurs during object or social manipulations beginning at 4 wk after fledging. The pattern supports the hypothesis that play functions as practice in the performance of motor patterns which involve complex skills used in many situations later in life. -from Author
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