Anyone who’s ever played hide-and-seek knows winning doesn’t come naturally. Being either the hider or the seeker requires a great deal of strategy and an understanding of the game’s simple yet strict rules.
After all we’ve come to learn about nonhuman animal intelligence and sentience, should it really come as a surprise that Rats (Rattus) can play the way human children do?
RATS AS HIDERS AND SEEKERS
In 2019, neuroscientist Michael Brecht and his team at the Humboldt University of Berlin’s Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience released the results of their study titled “Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Hide-and-Seek in Rats,” through the peer-reviewed academic journal Science.
At first glance, the study sounds like a dream: Who wouldn’t want to play hide and-seek with nonhuman animals? However, the experiment itself meant much more than just hiding from a few Rats.
Brecht and his group set out to examine the “evolutionary, cognitive, and neural underpinnings of mammalian play.” What many of us consider naturally fun “play behavior” actually depends on several factors, such as the foundational belief that “play is freedom and provides no profit,” according to the study.
Add to that the complex rules of hide-and-seek and the fact that the game hasn’t been extensively studied, and the group’s experiment becomes all the more complicated.
By the end of the study, all of the Rats had learned to be seekers within one to two weeks. Five out of the six Rats had learned how to hide as well. The study also reported that yet another experimenter “trained four more animals and all became proficient hide-and-seek players.”
All of these animals became adept at hide-and-seek not with food in mind but “playful interactions” as reward. The experiment provided insight into Rats’ vision, memories, game event-specific vocalizations, and prefrontal context activity.
The researchers concluded, “The elaborate cognitive capacities for hide-and-seek in [R]ats suggest that this game might be evolutionarily old.”
MOTIVATED TO “PLAY”
In a September 2019 interview with Emily Underwood of Science Magazine, Brecht explained that Rats executed “joy jumps” whenever they successfully found the experimenters during hide-and-seek. These Rats would often then begin hiding again immediately after being found, which meant they enjoyed the game and seemed to be having fun.
According to Brecht, this suggests the Rats continued playing for the experience, not the reward of “playful interactions” from experimenters.
WHY DO ANIMALS PLAY?
Not all animals play for “fun.” Here are a few reasons animals play, as reported by BBC Earth.
TO TRAIN THEIR MOTOR SKILLS
Horses (Equus caballus), Fishes, and even Insects have been found to engage in forms of play in order to hone their motor skills at an early age.
As soon as Horses are born, they tend to begin walking and galloping, as if in an immediate state of practice. Fishes, too, often swim over objects even when it isn’t necessary, perhaps as a way to practice dodging predators underwater.
TO LEARN HUNTING
Bears (Ursidae) and Dolphins (Delphinidae) exhibit behavior that could be explained by the urge to hone their hunting skills, but could also be viewed as ways to bond with their peers.
For instance, Bear cubs often wrestle with and attack each other playfully. Similarly, Dolphins blow air rings underwater only to attempt to catch these air rings with the help of their sonar skills.
TO PRACTICE BEING PARENTS
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are perhaps the best example of this type of play, considering female Chimpanzees play with “dolls.”
According to BBC Earth, these dolls look significantly different from what Humans are used to. Composed of simple sticks, the dolls end up being used as practice babies for young female Chimpanzees in Uganda.
TO DODGE DANGER
Sometimes, there isn’t any particular predator that animals have to prepare for. Instead, they instinctively prepare themselves for any sort of danger.
This is evident in groups of Kittens (Felis catus), wherein each Kitten tends to stalk, pounce on, and bite their siblings before any real danger befalls them. This form of play gets them used to the feeling of uncertainty, if only from their own families.
TO ESTABLISH HIERARCHY
When animals such as Kangaroos (Macropodidae) engage in play with their parents as babies, they begin to learn who is in control of the group. This could start with their immediate family, with mother Kangaroos pawing their joeys to keep them in line.
The realization that a parent has authority over younger Kangaroos extends into their adulthood, maintaining the status quo in their troop.
ANIMALS HAVING FUN
As researchers continue exploring the world of “fun” among nonhuman animals, the 2019 study about Rats playing hide-and-seek has given us a peek into the minds of what many still consider vermin.
If Rodents can have such rich social lives, what’s stopping us from acknowledging this and engaging with them?
