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Are you tired of waiting in line for the bathroom? Chimpanzees have a unique social solution – they all go at the same time.
Research has shown that chimpanzees can spread pee like a contagion. “This is the first study to explore infectious urination in animals,” explains Yamamoto Kiyoshi, a researcher at Kyoto University in Japan.
His colleague, Ena Onishi, was the first to observe this infectious behavior in a group of captive chimpanzees. Both researchers are studying animal behavior at Kyoto University.
“I noticed a trend of them urinating at the same time,” she remarked.
To investigate further, she and her colleagues spent over 600 hours studying 20 captive chimpanzees at the Kumamoto Sanctuary in Japan.
The team observed the chimpanzees urinating over 1,300 times and found that they were more likely to pee together. If one chimpanzee started peeing near another, there was a high chance that the second one would start as well.
The researchers shared their new findings in a study published on January 20th in Current biology.
What causes chimpanzees to pee in groups?
This contagious behavior does not seem to depend on social bonds. Contagious pee was observed between chimpanzees who knew each other well and those who didn’t. This is different from behaviors like grooming or yawning, where socially close chimpanzees are more likely to mimic each other.
Instead, contagious pee was linked to rank. Lower-ranked chimpanzees were more likely to start peeing if another chimpanzee did. This unexpected result suggests various possible explanations.
According to Onishi, high-ranking chimpanzees could influence others’ urination, or lower-ranked chimpanzees might be more sensitive to social cues in their environment, leading them to mimic others’ actions, including peeing.
Zanna Clay, a psychologist at Durham University in England, suggests further research to explore if contagious pee somehow benefits chimpanzees. While she did not participate in the study, she has studied the infectious nature of chimpanzee behaviors like grooming and play.
Onishi plans to study other chimpanzee groups, including wild populations, to understand how factors like age and sex influence this behavior. Researchers will also investigate if other species, such as bonobos, exhibit similar contagious urination.
Source: www.snexplores.org
