In Cheshire, a fox is poised to pounce on its mate when a badger bursts from a bush. The badger starts chasing the fox, which keeps leaping away, finally distancing itself. Then the fox suddenly turns back, approaches cautiously, and jumps sideways, facing the badger head-on. Back arched, head low, it stops, remains still. After a pause, the badger swiftly resumes the chase, causing the fox to hop around before lunging at its companion and darting off together.
In Orlando, three dolphins are swimming in unison when one forms a perfect bubble ring. Another immediately approaches and blows another ring, which merges with the first to create a larger hoop. The third dolphin appears to attempt to pass through it, completing their improvised choreography.
Animals often engage in play, from the spectacular to the subtle. Hyenas stage mock brawls, cats spin in circles chasing their tails, octopuses play push-and-pull with bottles, dogs bury sticks only to dig them up moments later… Even polar bears have been spotted playing with dogs, grabbing them in what looks like a hug, rolling in the snow, and letting the dogs gently nibble their lips. Such scenes make us grin with delight. But is that all there is to it?
Animal play can seem trivial, even laughable. Often defined as an intrinsically rewarding activity, yet offering no immediate survival benefits, its very existence is puzzling. While it has long been hypothesised that play serves as a rehearsal for adult behaviours, some studies suggest that it might not be crucial to their development. Play challenges us with its apparent lack of biological necessity.
In play, animals use real-world objects and situations to create fictitious ones
Play challenges both our philosophical and biological prejudices. Philosophically, animals are generally perceived as sentient, even intelligent, but whose intelligence is entirely devoted to survival. The still-dominant view aligns with the psychologist Frederik Jacobus Johannes Buytendijk’s assertion in 1942 that distinguished humans from animals: ‘Humans do not live unambiguously in an unambiguous world, unlike animals’.
Animals are assumed to be trapped in unequivocal, purely utilitarian relationships with the world. From a biological perspective, especially within evolutionary theory, the traditional approach conceives of nonhuman organisms as genetically programmed machines, their behaviours entirely shaped by natural selection to serve specific functions. Play, however, disrupts both these assumptions. On one hand, in play, animals use real-world objects and situations to create fictitious ones. On the other hand, this activity stands out for its apparent short-term uselessness and even its potential dangers, the conspicuousness of playful movements exposing animals to predators.
Remarkably, 22 of the 26 seal pups that died during the observation of the biologist Robert Harcourt were attacked by sea lions while playing. This example rebuts the claim that play, such as that between Pippo and Albertine, is confined to domestic animals, shielded from natural pressures and ‘distorted’ by human influence.
Play is widespread among animals, both domestic and wild, across a vast range of species. Several biologists (including Marc Bekoff, Gordon M Burghardt, John A Byers, Robert Fagen and Paul Martin) have proposed criteria for identifying play. In summary:
- Play lacks apparent short-term benefits.
- It is an activity animals seek for its own sake (it seems pleasurable).
- It involves motor patterns from functional, ‘serious’ contexts used in modified forms (eg, exaggeration, self-handicapping) and altered temporal sequencing.
- Because of its uselessness, play occurs when the animal feels (rightly or wrongly) safe and free from stress.
These criteria have helped identify play in a wide variety of species, from land mammals to cetaceans, birds, reptiles and even fish. It has also been observed in invertebrates: octopuses, spiders and, more recently, flies and bumblebees (apparently fond of rolling marbles).
Albertine’s actions were both exaggerated and versatile: she leapt high, landing on the table in a theatrical skid
How can we understand the omnipresence of this seemingly pointless activity? To begin with, we need to rethink our assumptions and consider that animals may be capable of pretence, and therefore, a form of creativity. The use of play-signals is common across species and, as in their case, even between species (eg, between dogs and horses). These signals are metacommunicative: they inform the other player that the situation is only a pretence. Through them, we know that animals actively build these simulated situations rather than being misled by illusion or error. Hence play also invites us to recognise that animal behaviour may not be entirely dictated by the struggle for existence and the drive for optimisation – ie, for maximising resources while minimising energy expenditure.
This is why some researchers hypothesise that the prevalence of play in many domestic and wild species, despite its apparent frivolity, may be explained not (so much) by its role in training typical behaviours, but rather by its function in fostering flexibility. Play provides opportunities for animals to test new behaviours that could later prove useful in functional contexts. Play, they suggest, prepares animals to perform novel actions in unexpected circumstances. It is indeed suited for such training, as it suspends the usual practical relationship with the world. Freed from the imperatives of reality, animals do not solely react to environmental stimuli but use them to investigate new potential relationships with their surroundings.
In play, animals can experiment with behaviours that might be ineffective or dangerous in real situations, but without running actual risk. Indeed, the playful situation is only a pretence, while the real-life circumstances are (or are at least perceived as) safe – otherwise, animals would not play. This may explain the sometimes-overdramatic aspect of playful behaviour: animals appear to be trying new things, exploring possibilities. In fact, play combines what computational theory identifies as the three processes of creation:
- Exploring an existing framework, such as a motor sequence, to discover its potential and limits.
- Creating a new combination of elements.
- Transforming the space of possibilities, by altering, adding or removing elements within the sequence.
The real predators fictitiously place themselves in a position of subordination
This distance from reality and the exploration of behavioural flexibility occurs in all kinds of play but is particularly remarkable in interspecies play. To play together, animals from distinct species must invent shared codes. Barbara Smuts, a primatologist renowned for her research on baboons, also described the playful interactions between her dog Safi and her neighbour’s donkey, Wister. To initiate and maintain play despite their morphological and communicational differences, Wister and Safi, she reported, co-created their own shared signals.
Interspecies play relies on – and, in doing so, reveals – animals’ ability for reciprocal flexibility. Such flexibility is not limited to domestic animals. Interspecies play has been observed in the wild between foxes and badgers, otters and alligators, baboons and jackals, ravens and wolves, and even, as mentioned above, dogs and polar bears. Strikingly, some of these species are involved, in ‘real life’, in predatory relationships, which always threaten to surface during the game. Yet the game pauses this threat, notably through self-handicapping and role reversal. Polar bears, for instance, will roll onto their backs, exposing their abdomen, as if submitting to the dogs. The real predators fictitiously place themselves in a position of subordination, putting the true predatory relationship at a distance.
Interspecies play thus involves modifying existing behaviours and sometimes even creating new ones. Wister, for instance, began imitating Safi by picking up sticks. Similarly, ravens invent motor sequences to engage in play with wolf pups. The relationship between ravens and wolves is a well-known mutualistic one: ravens follow wolves to access carcasses more efficiently, while wolves benefit from the ravens’ alerts to both potential prey and predators. However, this relationship, although widespread, does not develop automatically whenever the two species cohabit. It seems to rely on bonds established during their juvenile stage, notably through play. In Yellowstone National Park, for example, some ravens have invented a game where they pick up sticks, catch them in their talons, and fly in circles above wolf cubs, prompting the cubs to leap to catch them.
But aren’t these descriptions anthropomorphic? How can we be certain that animals truly play or invent?
As regards play, the criteria outlined above are operational, helping us identify it across species. Some might argue that the behaviours described here bear little resemblance to human play. Yet human play takes many forms – from children’s pretend play (not so far removed from some animal play), to chess, rough-and-tumble games, or football – all fitting the proposed definition despite their differences. One could object that this definition lacks certain features, such as explicit rules. However, rules are not always present, especially in children’s play.
Above all, assuming play is unique to humans, and that its definition should exclude nonhuman animals, is no more justified than assuming it is universal across species and tailoring a definition accordingly. The criteria developed by play biologists strike a balance: broad enough for cross-species comparison, yet narrow enough to distinguish play from closely related behaviours, like exploration.
This article is republished from Aeon under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
