AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Play is actually a form of learning. Through play, young animals learn important skills. By chasing, pouncing on, and wrestling with one another, kittens and other young predators are learning how to catch prey (see the adult cat in Figure above).

Detailed explanation-2: -Play is important for social, physical, and cognitive development, but it also prepares animals for the unexpected, he said. Play behavior can vary so much; animals need to be able to tell when something is play rather than real aggression or a mating display.

Detailed explanation-3: -What animals engage in play? Not too many years ago play was considered by most scholars and scientists as something we see in rather intelligent warm-blooded animals, such as monkeys and apes, dogs, cats, elephants, otters, bears, and some birds, such as crows and parrots.

Detailed explanation-4: -play, in zoology, behaviour performed in the absence of normal stimuli or behaviour elicited by normal stimuli but not followed to the completion of the ritualized behaviour pattern. Play has been documented only among mammals and birds.

Detailed explanation-5: -Learned Behavior Among Animals Learning is achieved through techniques like habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, observational learning, play, and insight learning.