Watch: Do apes have a sense of humor?

Joking around is an important part of human interaction. Babies tease each other as young as eight months old. But what about animals? Since teasing doesn’t require language, do animals do it, too?

In a study of great apes, researchers found playful teasing in four different species— orangutans (Pongo spp.), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (P. paniscus) and gorillas (Gorilla spp).

“Great apes are excellent candidates for playful teasing, as they are closely related to us, engage in social play, show laughter and display relatively sophisticated understandings of others’ expectations,” said Isabelle Laumer, postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Los Angeles and the first author of the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The team analyzed actions that appeared to be playful or provocative and assessed the attitudes of the both the teaser and the target.

“We hope that our study will inspire other researchers to study playful teasing in more species in order to better understand the evolution of this multi-faceted behavior,” Laumer said. “We also hope that this study raises awareness of the similarities we share with our closest relatives and the importance of protecting these endangered animals.”

Watch the video below, and read the study in PNAS.