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Animals and emotions Do animals have emotions? People often do horrible things to animals in the name of food, science, clothing and entertainment. They rarely ask themselves if there is emotional life in animal they are hurting or killing. Animals are very similar to humans – they often show their emotions by their eyes, faces, bodies, tails... Actually, studies proved that humans and all other mammals share neuroanatomical structures. According to Marc Bekoff and his “Animal Emotions: Exploring Passionate Natures” emotional responses by animals can be proved by changes in muscle tone, gait, posture, facial expression, odors, vocalization, eye size and gaze. Maybe an animal is not happy or sad in a way a human can be, but surely there is something that can be called “an emotion”. The joy of monkey and the joy of elephant are not the same. Also, there are differences between the same emotions in wild animals and their domestic relatives. It is sure that distress in animals is a way easier to see than happiness. According to “The Guardian” and article “Do animals have emotions” researching of emotions is often related to domestic animals because the wild ones are difficult for scientific experiments. Also, domestic animals can interpret human emotions better than wild ones, so there is a question if humans actually teach animals to feel emotions. For some, consciousness is related with emotions and there is one interesting fact – elephants, dolphins, some apes, magpies and killer whales are able to recognize themselves in the mirror. When it comes to emotions, the love is the most important one. Studies had shown that ravens have long-term mates and albatross can stay true to one another for 55 years. Empathy is also proved in some cases – rhesus monkeys don’t accept food when other monkey suffers when they do so. Also, there were mice that reacted more strongly to pain stimuli after they saw other mice in pain. When it comes to sadness, according to Nobel laureate Konrad Lorenz, geese can experience grief just like young children do – “A greylag goose that has lost its partner shows all the symptoms that John Bowlby has described in young human children in his famous book ‘Infant Grief’…the eyes sink deep into their sockets, and the individual has an overall drooping experience, literally letting the head hang….” Elephants can feel the grief, too. These animals often mourn their dead. It is proved that elephants actually have really big hippocampus. This is a brain structure in the limbic system that has huge role in processing emotions. Mourning can be related to birds, too. They cry mournfully when they see an enemy in their nests. According to www.wildfire.wbur.org and their article “Animals do have emotions but what should we call them?” dogs can read human emotions by scanning the right, more expressive side of human`s face. It is well-known that dog who wails his tail is expressing joy. There is interesting result of one study from Hungary – listening to the sound of laughter of crying causes the same reaction in dog’s and human’s brain. FEAR Fear is function of survival. According to animalliberationfront.com, even the primitive sea slug Aplysia shows fear after touching her gills. In this situation, his organism increases blood pressure and heart rate. Of course, there is difference between human and sea slug experiencing fear. Heart pounds faster and muscle squeeze as reaction to stimuli, but the feeling of fear is produces only when brain becomes aware of physical changes. There is one experiment with mice showing fear. The pool is surrounded by four arms – two of them prevent falling and two open. Mice without drugs decide to move along protected arms. Mice which were given anxiety drugs choose open arms. According to “Human and animal emotions – are they the same?” by Keith Kendrick, same areas are activated in human’s, rat’s, lizard’s and sheep’s brain when experiencing fear. Also, same type of responses is involved – freezing, changes in stress hormones and body highly prepared for action. In this moment, the processes that are not essential for living are shut down. According to “The expression of the emotions in man and animal” by Charles Darwin, tamed jackals and wolves, when frightened, tuck in their tails. HAPPINESS Some people say that believing that animals can feel happiness is anthropomorphism. Happiness is a form of pleasure and it is important for teaching to repeat behaviors necessary for surviving. According to Karen Davis, president of United Poultry Concerns, when someone see chicken eating with her tail up, eating with pleasure, with eyes bright and alert leads to conclusion that chicken is in good condition and happy. Animals sometimes do things that have no “evolutionary benefit”. When a macaque swim and it is not hot, there is no apparent benefit of territory, hierarch or food, it is obviously that reason is pleasure/happiness. Because of same reason, orangutans swing from branches and splash their hands into pools and ravens lie down on their backs and slide down snow covered roof tops. According to “The expression of the emotion in man and animals” by Charles Darwin, tamed wolves and jackals wag their tails when they are happy, just like dogs do. They also lick hands of their master, crouch down and lower their ears. Jaak Panksepp, American psycho-biologist and neuroscientist, discovered that rat is actually capable of laughing (makes ultrasonic crisps when it is being tickled). SADNESS According to www.elephantsexpert.com, elephants have unique reactions to other elephant’s death. When they see skulls and bones of other animals of same kind, they spend a lot of time touching them. Elephants are also very sensitive to other elephant’s distress and they often comfort them by touching. The sign of temporary distress in case of an elephant is pushing the trunk on the ground or leaning the forehead against an object. If there is more serious problem with the mental health of one elephant, he/she will have stereotypic behavior (swinging the trunk from one side to another, for instance). Of course, there is a problem caused by impossibility to measure emotions, but it is sure that all the mammals can “feel” in some way. According to Marc Bekoff and his article on psychologytoday.com, there was a case of male elephant baby who was crying for over five hours after being parted from a mother who tried to kill him. More serious case is related to chimpanzee babies who died after losing their mothers, regardless of all kinds of given help. According to “When elephants weep” by Masson and McCarthy, elephants have some kind of water discharges from their eyes that is similar to human’s tears. ANGER According to “The expression of the emotions in man and animal” by Charles Darwin, anger is often showed by many kinds of monkeys. When angry, some of them gaze with a fixed and savage glare on their foe, pout the lips and repeat the short starts, while uttering inward guttural sounds. Some species make abrupt starts, while opening mouth and pursuing lips. Their eyes are fixed on enemy. When angry, long–tailed monkeys show their teeth and also cry sharply. Some kinds of monkeys draw back their ears. In some cases, movements are almost the same when monkey is pleased and when it is angry. Baboons show anger by opening mouth widely, just as they yawn. They also strike the ground with one hand. Faces of some monkeys become red when they are enraged. Some species (especially baboons), rapidly move their eyebrows up and down when they are angered or excited in any other way. References 1. http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Morality/Speciesism/feelings.pdf 2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201309/do-elephants-weep-emotional-response 3. http://www.elephantexperts.org/emotions.html 4. http://thewildlife.wbur.org/2014/08/28/animals-do-have-emotions-but-what-should-we-call-them/ 5. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/13/if-only-they-could-talk- 6. http://thebark.com/content/do-animals-have-emotions 7. http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/10/861.full 8. Darwin, C. The expression of the emotions in man and animals, John Murray, Albemarle Street, London, (1872).