# Do animals have humor? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 24, 1999, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649 "1999-06-24T16:29:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 1999, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/1 "1999-06-24T16:29:00Z")
Do animals ever behave as if they demonstrating a sense of humor? For example, when chimps they chuck their feces at people (assuming this isn’t a myth), do they “laugh”, or do something similar? What about other animals? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 1999, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/2 "1999-06-24T16:41:00Z")
We had a parakeet once who very carefully read the paper lining his cage, deciding which politician’s picture to … um… defecate on. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 1999, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/3 "1999-06-24T16:51:00Z")
They “chortle.” (Like I’m doing now). ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 1999, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/4 "1999-06-25T05:03:00Z")
I had a cat who when I tried to corral him, to take to the vet or something, would watch me approach to within a foot of grabbing distance then bolt. He would then sit ten feet away to see if I would try again. He could have just gone and hid in a bush, but he preferred taunting me. I’m sure _he_ thought it was funny. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 1999, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/5 "1999-06-25T05:06:00Z")
Could you define “humor”, please? As far as I know, most mammals enjoy playing “games”. Primates (us included) are prone to deceive other fellow primates in order to get food, or sex, but I don’t know if they have fun doing it (well, we humans do!). Sometimes “humor” can be defined as the joy we get from someone else’s disgrace, or pain. As the humor in most jokes. Is that the kind of humor you are talking about? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 1999, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/6 "1999-06-25T05:10:00Z")
They “guffaw,” too. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 1999, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/7 "1999-06-25T05:29:00Z")
Nickrz: they chortle, they guffaw…but do they _“titter”_? * * * “Can I join you ladies…into one big lady?” - Groucho Marx ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 1999, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/8 "1999-06-27T02:33:00Z")
My cat Rosie delights in walking directly through complexly set up board games. I presume she snickers about it afterwards, or else she conceals it beneath her usual air of cynical urbane disaffectedness, after the manner of Dorothy Parker. (Yes, I am a cat person.) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 1999, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/9 "1999-06-28T07:44:00Z")
[[Do animals ever behave as if they demonstrating a sense of humor? For example, when chimps they chuck their feces at people (assuming this isn’t a myth), do they “laugh”, or do something similar? What about other animals?]] Thee’s not likely any way to prove it, but I have little doubt that higher mammals, at least, have a rudimentary sense of humor, based on my experience. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 1999, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/10 "1999-06-28T10:49:00Z")
Well, now, Tom. Which group would you rather have running through your courtroom? A “smattering of giggles” or a “ripple of titters”? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 1999, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/11 "1999-06-28T10:54:00Z")
I believe Koko, the famous sign-language gorrilla, refered to a fellow gorilla as a “stinky bad toilet” (or something similar). Don’t know if she was joking. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 1999, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/12 "1999-06-28T12:45:00Z")
I was talking to my next door neighbour, who swears that his parrot called the (prior) dog (“Kiki! Kiki!”), the dog came to the call of his name, and the parrot would bite his ear and then laugh hysterically. The dog (described by my neighbour as stupidest ever, kept coming back for the same treatment, time and again, and the parrot laughed so hard he “almost falls off the perch.” Could be crap, of course, I haven’t seen it, it’s a neighbour, though, not a FOAF. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 1999, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/13 "1999-06-28T22:42:00Z")
…Fits of insane cackling ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 1999, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-have-humor/1649/14 "1999-06-29T19:28:00Z")
Apart from trying to decide if animals giggle or laugh (sic!), it could boil down to “what is humor?” E1skeptic > [@](#): > > Sometimes “humor” can be defined as the joy we get from someone else’s disgrace, or pain. As the humor in most jokes. A couple of years ago, I visited a bear park in the north of Sweden. It was early summer and the cubs were just out, fooling around. This park has 1000’s of acres of forest for the bears to roam, and is **not** a zoo, where the animals learn to play to the audience for peanuts. The first few weeks after the cubs are out, they are in a very large compound, and the only way to see them is to walk about 100 feet up in the air, on a walkway, so not to disturb them. Access for tourists is kinda restricted. I just wanted to get the settings straight here. As I stood there, watching the cubs play around, two of them walked over to a pool. One decided to stand by the edge on its hind legs and the other got an idea. Ha backed a little an **deliberately pushed** the other cub into the pool, after which he himself feel backwards and rolled around and made grunting noises (laughing?). You make up your own minds. I am convinced he did it for fun. If that means he has a sense of humor? Again, what is humor? ct * * * _When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout_