Turtles can not be infected yawn

For infectiousness of yawning is necessary soperezhivanie



Yawning - a very contagious, at least for humans. Surely you've noticed that the man standing in the same room with you yawn, such as starting to do the same thing everyone else. To check the watch for other people when yawn themselves - in 40-60% of cases, they also do not hold out.

This behavior is not unique to man, dogs and primates "perezёvyvayutsya" with each other and with people. Yawning - is a fixed form of action, that is, once begun, it can not be interrupted until the blunder will not end in a natural way.

To find out whether or not yawn - one of the manifestations of empathy, the researchers tested it on animals, which, although they live together in groups, but not "sympathize" other members of their species - Red-turtles.

They taught a tortoise to yawn, as soon as she saw the red dot. It was not easy - it took a full six months. Then trained turtle sat down with the other turtles, and scientists began to observe whether they would yawn with her. The results were negative: turtles did not care, yawn "neighbors" or not.

This may mean that yawning is contagious only for social species that are capable of empathy.

via factroom.ru