Yawning Contagious Across Species

It is a commonly observed phenomenon that when one person yawns, the probability of another person in the vicinity doing so is greatly increased. However, this was long thought to be an exclusively human characteristic. Close observation pushed back the frontiers, such that our cousins, the great apes, were also included. However, now research suggests that man's bestfriend can also 'catch' a yawn.

We know that people yawn when they are very tired or when they are under a level of stress. Though dangerously anthropomorphic, it is generally assumed that animals yawn for similar reasons. However, why an individual is more likely to yawn when someone else around them has done so, is still rather unclear.

It may be that mimicking someone else's yawn demonstrates empathy towards them. Indeed, it has been observed that autistic people find yawns less contagious than other people, and autism is generally associated with difficulties in relating to other people.

This seems to suggest that dogs are able to empathise with humans on some level. This will surely reaffirm the dog's position as a man's best friend and highlights a good level of social intelligence on behalf of these animals.

It is also important to ask what the evolutionary benefit of such behaviour is? We will have to wait for further studies to see if yawning is contagious among wolves or whether this behaviour is the result of around fifteen thousand years of human-directed, selective breeding.