Play is a big part of human life. It is something we all grow up doing in order to relieve stress and relax ourselves. Whether its playing call of duty or a game of soccer, play is something we all do at some point. Are humans the only ones that play though? Studies have been done on numerous animals and it has been recognized that animals also play.
Biopsychologist Gordon Burghardt while visiting the National Zoo in Washington, DC peaked in on a Nile soft-shelled turtle by the name of Pigface and realized he was doing something Turtles were unknown to do at the time, he was playing basketball. At the time play had been rarely seen by animals and not much was known on the subject. He began to study play and wrote an article he entitled recess. This article outlined Burghardt’s five criteria for play and he became one of the first people to do this.
Jennifer Mather at the University of Lethbridge in Canada recently discovered bizarre behavior in her two octopus research subjects. “If you give an [octopus] something new, it will grab it in its arms and bring it up to its mouth, probably exploring it chemically. This would usually happen a couple of times until it knew what it was, and didn’t bother anymore. But these two, it’s like they suddenly thought, Maybe I can do something with this.” She is referring to her subjects blowing jet streams of water at empty pill bottles. Is this play? Because there has not been much research done on the subject of animals playing, it is hard to say but what is known is that animals do exhibit times of bizarre unexplained behavior like this. If a dog was running after a basketball would this be considered play and how does this differ from a turtle? You decide.
Read more: Recess - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/2010/10/1/44/1/#ixzz14qBUOZOG
Posted by “Alberto Suarez”
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How in the world was a turtle playing basketball?! I'm not sure if I would consider that play because I didn't think they could actually "run" after a basketball like a dog could. The octopus example, however, is very interesting. Is she sure that blowing a jet stream of water at empty pill bottles isn't a defense mechanism? There definitely needs to be more research conducted on this subject to know for sure...
ReplyDeleteAbbie Lamarre-DeJesus
I'm interested to know precisely what five criteria make up the activity of "play". I also wonder, is blowing bubbles play or simply an action an octopus does when trying to get prey items out of a small spot? Was it out of defense as was suggested earlier? The difference between playing for a turtle vs. a dog may be very different but do they both fit Burghardt's five criteria for play? This is definetly interesting research. Thanks!
ReplyDeletePosted by Shyla Morsbach
In animals, I've heard that play behavior is mostly a way to learn about the environment they will be/ are living in and the power of their own bodies/ how to hunt, mate etc. How much does play activity decrease once an animal knows how to do these things? Does it change in quality at all?
ReplyDeleteIn humans, play behavior seems to change from an exploratory thing to wish-fulfillment, dominance exercise, or something to establish the individual as part of a group, plus a few others I'm sure. (For example: playing video games or reading, one-on-one basketball, or attending a football game, in that order.) If play in humans changes, I'm sure it changes in animals. But how so? Would the fighting of deer for mates count as play, the same way one on one basketball counts as play for us?
-Alice Trei