Juvenile great apes love to tease and annoy their elders, study finds

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Footage of great apes has revealed that humans are not the only ones to endure seemingly endless bouts of teasing dished out by their smaller and weaker young who appear intent on pushing their luck.

From 75 hours of footage taken at San Diego and Leipzig zoos, scientists documented 142 clear instances of great apes teasing their compadres, with most instigated by juveniles aged three to five years old.

The apes poked, prodded and ran away, offered objects and then pulled them back, body-slammed one other, stuck their faces in others’ faces, pulled on wisps of hair – a move particularly common in orangutans whose hair is amply long enough – tugged on body parts, tickled, and dangled things in front of each other.

“We cannot really say why they are doing it, but we can observe that they are doing it,” said Dr Isabelle Laumer at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany.

But with the behaviour evident in our closest primate cousins, teasing and the cognitive skills that underpin it may trace back 13m years to the last common ancestor humans share with modern apes, Laumer said.

“Teasing has been discussed in relation to humour, but it can also contribute to understanding social partners,” said Dr Marina Davila-Ross, who studies the evolution of communication at the University of Portsmouth.

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