Abstract
To clarify the social functions of play panting in chimpanzees, I investigated when they emitted play panting in social play and how the interactions were affected by the occurrence of play panting. The subjects were the M-group chimpanzees living in Mahale, Tanzania. The following observations were made: (1) chimpanzees emitted play panting when they were tickled or chased but rarely did so when they tickled or chased others. Chimpanzee play panting does not have the function of a play signal communicating that these “aggressive” actions are performed not as aggression but as play. (2) Chimpanzees emitted play panting more often when they received “aggressive” actions that supposedly elicited higher arousal. (3) A chimpanzee tended to continue to perform “aggressive” actions when the target emitted play panting. Play panting activates the interaction of social play by encouraging the performer to continue tickling or chasing. These results can be summarized as showing that chimpanzee play panting serves as positive feedback to the play partner for continuing somewhat fragile interactions, which may contain the risk of excessive arousal and the risk of confusing “defensive” actions by the target of the “aggressive” actions with real efforts to escape the situation.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology, Serengeti Wildlife Research Institute, Mahale Mountains Wildlife Research Center, and Tanzania National Parks for permission to do this research and for their support while I was in Tanzania; T. Nishida for his guidance and encouragement throughout this study; S. Preuschoft for reading the manuscript and giving me many important suggestions; three anonymous referees for useful comments that improved the manuscript; S. Uehara, K. Hosaka, M. Nakamura, S. Fujita, J. Wakibara, N. Kutsukake, and Watongwe research assistants for their cooperation in the field; J. Yamagiwa, S. Suzuki, and other members of the Laboratory of Human Evolution Studies, Kyoto University for their critical comments and useful suggestions. This study was financially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) of the MEXT (No. 12375003 to T. Nishida), a Grant-in-Aid for the COE Research (No. 10CE2005 to O. Takenaka) and a Grant-in-Aid for 21st Century COE Research Kyoto University (No. A14).
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Matsusaka, T. When does play panting occur during social play in wild chimpanzees?. Primates 45, 221–229 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-004-0090-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-004-0090-z