Compared to children, adults don’t play as much, but social play into adulthood is considered a universal human trait. Play has a role in building tolerance, cohesion, bonding, and cooperation. By comparison, play in adults of other species has been considered rare, and yet a new study reported in Current Biology shows that some chimpanzees, like people, continue to play often throughout their entire lives and especially before engaging in acts that require collective cooperation.
Wild chimpanzees play as adults to better cooperate as a group, researchers suggest
