Gorillas understand the meaning of fair play

GORILLAS play games just like humans, and even give young friends leeway to make sure they have a fair chance, Scottish scientists have shown.

Psychologists at the University of St Andrews studied gorillas playing with balls, bags and pieces of leather, and believe the primates' behaviour helps in tracing the origins of how humans understand each other.

Professor Richard Byrne said: "Just like we would, the gorillas used gestures and displays of the object to keep the action going, and if the game slowed down or stopped, a gorilla would use varied tactics to get it going again.

"The players were also considerate of others' abilities. An older and more skilled gorilla seeming to realise that if it used all of its potential, the younger one wouldn't be able to compete, so the older gorilla would slow down the pace."

In humans, such shared activity begins when babies reach about nine months old.

Until now, it has been thought that the behaviour was unique to humans.

As a result of the new study, however, scientists can map the evolution of this process back to the time when humans shared ancestry with gorillas, more than six million years ago.

The research is published by the journal Animal Cognition.