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What Is a Friend?

4 Biologist Dr. Marc Bekoff at the University of Colorado studies
dogs, wolves, and coyotes. Although human friendships differ
from animal friendships, Bekoff believes that many animals do
have friends. What are the signs of animal friendship? If
they’re in the same pack, animal friends may sleep close to one
another. They greet one another, travel together, share food,
and groom each other. Animal friends are nice to one another.
They even play together. This friendly behavior can be
important to an animal’s survival.

5 Playing together, for instance, helps forge important
social bonds that keep an animal within the safety of the group.
“Coyote pups who don’t play much are less tightly bonded to
other members of their group and are more likely to strike
out on their own,” says Bekoff. Leaving the protection of the

group is dangerous. In his seven-year study of coyotes in
Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, Bekoff found that 60
percent of the youngsters who left the group failed to survive.

6 For more than 35 years, Dr. Frans de Waal (VAHL) at
Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has studied primates—
animals such as apes and monkeys. He, too, believes friendship
plays a role in understanding how these animals interact.

Chimpanzees spend hours
grooming each other.
Besides keeping their skin
free of pests, the friendly
behavior helps maintain
harmony in the group.

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