Humans do it, monkeys do it, even polar bears do it. And now researchers have reconstructed the evolutionary origins of kissing.
Their study suggests that the mouth-on-mouth kiss evolved more than 21 million years ago, and was something that the common ancestor of humans and other great apes probably indulged in.
The same research concluded that Neanderthals may have kissed too – and that humans and Neanderthals may even have smooched one another.
The scientists studied kissing because it presents something of an evolutionary puzzle – it has no obvious survival or reproductive benefits, and yet it is something that is seen not just in many human societies, but across the animal kingdom.
In this study, scientists found behaviour that matched their scientific definition of kissing in wolves, prairie dogs, polar bears (very sloppy – lots of tongue), and even albatrosses.
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While this study pinpointed when kissing evolved it was not able to answer the question of why.
