It has long been known that apes can plan ahead and consider the beliefs of other individuals, but no reproducible evidence has shown an ape’s ability to engage with make-believe objects.

Remember childhood tea parties? The cups are empty, the teapot is dry, yet the air is thick with the drama of imagined ...

Children love to play pretend, holding imaginary tea parties, educating classrooms of teddies or running their own grocery ...

The ability to imagine — to play pretend — has long been thought to be unique to humans. A new study suggests one of our closest living relatives can do it too.

Little kids hosting make-believe tea parties is a fixture of childhood playtime and long presumed to be exclusively a human ...

In a playtime experiment, researchers found that our closest living relatives have the capacity for make-believe, too.

Scientists tested a bonobo called Kanzi and found evidence he could understand pretend objects, suggesting imagination may ...

Humans aren't the only species that can pretend, a study shows. Scientists offered a bonobo imaginary juice and grapes in a ...

The ability to imagine -- to play pretend -- has long been thought to be unique to humans. A new study suggests certain apes may be able to as well.

We don’t just have sex to reproduce - new research suggests that using sex to manage social tension could be a trait that existed in the common ancestor of humans and apes six million years ago.

Juvenile bonobo embraces a distressed companion during post-conflict consolation. Psychologists from Durham University, UK, observed the behaviour of 90 sanctuary-living apes to establish whether ...

Bonobos and chimps are our closest living links to the six million-year-old ancestor from which both they and we descended. As primatologist Frans de Waal points out, Kano's work "was a major ...