All Living Creatures Play
including spiders and wasps!
I’ve just come across this and can hardly believe what I’ve read. But no, it’s true. Spiders play games with juvenile females, pretending to mate. Wasps bite one another’s antennae for no discernible reason. Octopuses have been seen shooting water at plastic bottles in a kind of game.
We’re used to the idea of mammals playing — kittens shooting ping-pong balls around the room, dogs chasing sticks, lambs bounding around — but the idea of non-mammals playing has never entered my head.
What exactly is the definition of play?
It’s an activity in which the creature wants to partake, there’s no particular reason for doing it and it’s often repetitive.
But it is only for the young?
No. A 40-year-old turtle, bored out of its shell, was finally given a couple of basketballs and a hoop to play with — and it was seen playing with them, much as a dog might.
Are we ever too old to play? That example would suggest not. So why aren’t we adults doing it?
Some might say we are playing — video games, online Scrabble and that sort of thing. We could count partaking in sports as a form of play — certainly enjoyable and physically challenging. But actual play — doing silly things over and over just for the fun of it — that’s what is meant by ‘play.’
It must be important if every creature does it. Perhaps it helps the young animal prepare for adulthood — but no, kittens that play more do not become better hunters.
Children are our best example. What do I get when I go over to my daughter’s house? Two small faces, pleading for me to play with them. My grand-daughters aged 4 and 7 leap around on the furniture (they’re not supposed to!) ride each other like horses and cling to Grandad’s legs so he can hardly walk.
The games they want me to play are inventive. They have lots of small dolls including mermaids and we’ve played a repetitive story for hours and hours and hours about one of the dolls trying to discover if there are really mermaids in the sea.
Another repetitive game — again going on and on for ages — is one in which I recite a rhyme I made up and they do the silly actions. It always makes them giggle — and I can’t help laughing too.
So I guess, as an adult, I play — and yes, it is fun.
Is it useful?
Rats raised among adult rats which aren’t prone to playing and are therefore denied play grow to have significant differences in their brain structure with under-development of the area responsible for making decisions.
Can it also lead to depression? Can pretend situations prepare children for adult life by giving them simulated experiences of failure, unfairness and life’s ups and downs?
All in all, play is more than a bit of fun. We all need it, whatever age we are. Children need to be outdoors if possible, with other children and the school playground is ideal for that, but play-dates are a good idea too.
And if there are no children to play with that day — get out there with your little ones and have some fun.
