For the first time, Japanese researchers have described a phenomenon called “contagious urination” in chimpanzees.
- When a urine chimpanzee, the others do the same within 60 seconds following, especially when they are physically close to each other.
- “Micitation patterns are influenced by the social hierarchy”, according to the authors.
- Contagious urination could have important implications in the establishment and the maintenance of social cohesion.
When you see a person yawning, you end up doing it also a few seconds later. This would also happen for the decision to urinate, which “implies a complex combination of physiological and social considerations”, According to scientists from the University of Kyoto (Japan). To achieve this conclusion, the latter have been interested in the social dimensions of urination, far unexplored so far. In a study, they have, more precisely, analyzed the alignment of urination in time, that is to say synchronization, and the trigger of urination by observing similar behavior in others , namely social contagion.
The contagion scheme of mictions is influenced by social rank
For research needs, published in the journal Current Biologythe team documented the urinary behavior of the Kumamoto chimpanzees over more than 600 hours, including 1,328 episodes of urination. “Contagious urination” have been reported in animals. In detail, the episodes of urination were significantly more synchronized when the chimpanzees saw others urinate. The probability of a contagious urination also increased with physical proximity to an animal wanting and decided to urinate. “Those with a lower dominance rank were more likely to urinate when others urinated. Thus, the micual patterns are influenced by the social hierarchy”, said the authors.
Socially contagious urination, a neglected facet of social behavior
According to them, these results could open multiple possibilities of interpretation. “For example, this could reflect leadership hidden in the synchronization of group activities, strengthening social ties or a bias of attention in lower hierarchically speaking people. These data raise intriguing questions about the social functions of this behavior” ,, said Shinya Yamamoto, who participated in the work. Researchers believe that this study would have important implications to understand and explore the role of this behavior in maintaining group cohesion, facilitation of coordination or strengthening social ties within a group.
