Great apes can be playful pranksters, too. Bob McDonald once learned this first-hand

The next time a child sneaks up behind you and pulls your hair and then runs away snickering, just know that according to a new study, trying to get a laugh is part of our evolutionary heritage.

A report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B showed that spontaneous playful and teasing behaviour, similar to that seen in children, was observed in chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas. The authors suggest that the roots of humour could go back millions of years.

Researchers from University of California Los Angeles, the Max Plank Institute of Animal Behaviour, Indiana University and the University of San Diego recorded 72 hours of video and observed playful teasing behaviour across all four species.

In all cases, the activities were provocative, intentional, playful and relaxed. Teasing is related to joking and involves planning, understanding the target's expectations and getting enjoyment out of upending those expectations. 

Often initiated by the young and targeted at an adult, a teasing activity might include approaching from behind and poking or pulling hair, then running away and looking back to see if it got a response. If not, the action was repeated. The target ape would either ignore, move away or respond with similar playful activity. At no time did the actions trigger a violent response.

Chimpanzees showed the greatest variety of teasing events among the four species. 

The scientists observed 18 different behaviours they classified as teasing and distinct from play, which is more reciprocal and can involve holding on and play-fighting.

The ape teasing appeared to be more like pranks, where they would sneak up from behind for a surprise attack, similar to children that tease adults and run away giggling just for the fun of it.

Bob vs. bonobo

This reporter got a taste of ape humour in 1995 when visiting a famous bonobo — which is a smaller sub-species of chimpanzee previously known as the pygmy chimp — named Kanzi.

The male ape lived in Georgia University's Language Research Center run by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, who was dedicated to teaching the primates how to communicate with people. 

Kanzi was following in the footsteps of the famous western lowland gorilla, Koko, who learned American Sign Language and many spoken English words, and appeared twice on the cover of National Geographic magazine.

Using an electronic touch pad covered in symbols representing words and phrases spoken by a voice synthesizer, Kanzi acquired the ability to recognize spoken language and use the symbols to respond which reportedly gave him a vocabulary of around 3,000 words.

When I met Kanzi, he was sitting with Sue in an outdoor play area surrounded by a chain-link fence. My Quirks & Quarks producer, Ann Stuart, audio technician, Larry Morey and I stood outside the fence watching the action.

At that time, audio recording equipment was quite bulky, so Larry was burdened with a reel-to-reel tape recorder and audio mixer hanging around his neck while holding a large microphone on the end of a boom pole.

I asked Sue if she could demonstrate Kanzi's speaking ability.

She faced the bonobo, who was sitting on her lap, and asked him a question. He immediately pressed one of the symbols on the keypad and the synthetic voice said, "chase."

"He likes to chase. So, if you run along the fence he will chase after you," she explained.

The three of us began running along the length of the fence, Larry doing his best to keep up with all the equipment bouncing off his chest. We reached the end, about six metres away, looked back and saw that Kanzi was still in Sue's lap. 

Oldest trick in the book: "You want to race? Ready set, go!" Then laugh at the other person tearing off at a mad pace while you sit back and watch. Clever little ape.

"Chase," said the synthesizer again at Kanzi's prompt. We ran back. Larry was wheezing deeply as we returned. Kanzi was still in Sue's lap. 

"Chase," he pressed one more time. No way, prankster, this game is over. Kanzi didn't laugh out loud, but he did get the better of his human visitors. 

Humour is part of human nature. Infants will laugh if you do something funny and start engaging in teasing behaviour as young as eight months old. We laugh together at parties, comedy movies and with stand-up comics. It is indeed the best medicine.

If the great apes do have their own sense of humour, the authors suggest the roots of humour could extend back to the common ancestor of humans and apes at least 13 million years ago.

It makes you wonder: if that's true, what was the world's first joke?

WATCH: Playful teasing in four great ape species