> Do animals have humour?

Do animals have humour?

Posted at: 2014-11-15 
That is tough to say. You don't know if some animal did something for a laugh or if it is just being mean. The same is true of humans. Play a joke on a friend and you may not get any negative reaction. Play a joke on an enemy or stranger and you may get punched in the nose or worse. If you play a prank on an enemey, are you being mean or is it humor? You may know your own intentions but others may not. Therefore we cannot say with any certainty whether some animal has a sense of humor or whether it is just a mean individual.

I saw a video of an orangutan striking another orangutan on the head with something that looks like a coconut. The narrator said that the orangutan was dumb for doing that. The orangutan that was hit in the head pushed the hitter back with its arm, showing its displeasure. In fact the reaction is quite similar to a human that has been wronged by a friend, a push back. We don't know if the hitter was really dumb or he was being humorous.

They do in their own way, they pull pranks on other animals they are friends with, playfully bite and or sneak around. But they don't know what humans are saying only the tone, they wouldn't know a joke to be funny.