Do Animals Have Fun?

Animal play has come into focus as a subject of study only in the past century, and the field is still developing even basic principles. What is play? How do we define it in species as different from us and from each other as octopuses and crows? The most careful observer may find it hard to avoid biases about what play looks like and means. In humans, many forms of play imitate serious behavior: hunting, courtship, exploration, building, fighting. We recognize play in other species if it looks like our own games, yet what looks like play from one perspective may be something else altogether. We may miss play entirely if it doesn’t have a human equivalent—or if it appears in an animal we don’t believe to be like us at all.