WHY ANIMALS PLAY

From bees playing ball to snowboarding birds, is there reason to animal recreation?

- AILSA HARVEY

When humans play, it brings people together socially, demonstrates competition and survival skills and enables creativity and exploration. For many animals, games and other playtime interactions provide similar benefits. But humans play differently to many other species of the animal kingdom, so how do we know when a creature is playing and when it's doing something else? There are five criteria that need to be met before researchers can say that an animal is playing: the activity needs to be spontaneous, exaggerated, not fully functional, performed when an animal is healthy and relaxed and have some repetition to show the act was intentional.

Humans have much more time for leisure activities compared to wild animals, who remain survival-oriented and alert to danger. But playing can be a fun and engaging way to introduce young animals to the survival skills they will depend on later in life. A litter of kittens, for example, will bite and fight with each other from an early age. While the unpredictable actions of a sibling won't harm another, the litter will develop quicker reaction times to potential threats and unexpected events early on.

In other instances, play presents itself as a seemingly random act. Scientists don't fully understand the reasoning behind every animal action, but it's possible that animals don't always follow logic. Like humans, some activities are performed purely for pleasure. When many animals play, feel-good chemicals such as dopamine are released, which serve the body by boosting mood and enhancing neural functions such as learning and memory.

DOLPHIN BUBBLE PLAY