For Budgies, Yawns are Contagious: Why Birds and Humans Have 'Catching' Yawns

Are yawns contagious? They are for humans, dogs and chimpanzees. Until now, though, researchers didn't realize that contagious yawning could also occur between member bird species. But they've discovered that in the budgie, this is exactly what happens.

Yawning is more than just an involuntary action. It's actually a primitive form of showing empathy. For example, it's been proven that contagious yawning is more common among people who are considered more empathetic.

"To date, this is the first experimental evidence of contagious yawning in a non-mammalian species," said Andrew Gallup, the new study leader, in a news release.

Budgerigars, more commonly known as budgies or parakeets, are native to Australia. However, they're often kept in cages as pets. These birds are highly social and will form lasting bonds in the wild and in captivity.

In this latest study, the researchers examined the birds in two different experiments. In the first, 16 birds were paired in adjacent cages with and without barriers blocking their view. If contagious, yawns should be clustered in time only when the birds could see each other. In a second experiment, the same birds were shown separate video clips of a budgie yawning and not yawning.

So what did they find? Yawning occurred three times as often within a five-minute window when the birds could see one another than when their view was blocked from the other bird. When the birds watched video clips of another budgie yawning, yawns occurred twice as often.

The findings suggest that contagious yawning isn't only limited to mammalian species. Instead, it seems as if bird species also are able to also experience this phenomenon. This suggests that these birds experience a certain amount of empathy.

The findings are published in the journal Animal Cognition.

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