Smiling Baby Monkeys and the Roots of Laughter (VIDEO)
Caption
The short, lop-sided smiles of baby Japanese macaques.
When human and chimpanzee infants are dozing, they sometimes show facial movements that resemble smiles. These facial expressions -- called spontaneous smiles -- are considered the evolutionary origin of real smiles and laughter.
Researchers at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute show that this not only happens to higher-order primates like humans and chimpanzees, but also in newborn Japanese macaques, which are more distant relatives in the evolutionary tree.
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Kyoto University Primate Research Institute
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