People’s love for spinning has been manifested since childhood. After all, for hundreds of years the game “all around” was one of the most popular on the world’s playgrounds. However, according to a new study, humans aren’t the only primates that enjoy spinning dizzy. The results, published last month in the journal Primates, suggest that other great ape species also seem to enjoy the sensory stimulation of rotation, perhaps even regularly choosing it to change their emotional state.

“Spinning just for dizziness is what we usually think of as a purely human activity,” said Markus Perlman, a University of Birmingham scientist and author of the study. “So it’s really cool to find that other primates do it too, and that they seem to do it for the same reason we do: because it’s fun and refreshing.”

After watching a video of Zola, the Calgary Zoo gorilla famous for flailing its fists, Dr. Perlman turned to YouTube to see if other apes practice the same behavior. He has collected about 400 videos of monkeys and other primates performing actions such as somersaults, uphill rolls and pirouettes. Even more impressive, however, was the “flying” spin, where monkeys of various species like to hang on to something while spinning around themselves.

Perlman and Adriano Lameira, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Warwick, identified 132 instances of rotation in the air in orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. The videos mostly showed monkeys in captivity, but some also showed wild gorillas hanging from vines.

The researchers calculated the speed at which the monkeys rotated. The results showed that most of them made 1.43 rotations per second – a speed that rivals professional dancers. The scientists observed 28 consecutive revolutions, and the highest speed achieved by the bonobo monkey was an incredible four complete revolutions per second.

The researchers noticed that the longer the monkey was spun, the more signs of dizziness they had, such as letting go of the rope and immediately sitting up or lying down.

The animals also often made “playful faces” while spinning, Perlman said, suggesting they were probably having fun and not just looking for a way to alleviate boredom in captivity. “There is something about this experience that they enjoy,” Dr. Perlman commented.

Katherine Hobeiter, a primatologist at the University of St. Andrews who was not involved in the study, agreed. Based on her observations, she said that “wild monkeys love to twirl.”

Stimulation of the senses

Monkeys and some other animals have been known to engage in other activities that can stimulate the senses, such as eating fermented fruits that contain alcohol and ingesting natural psychedelics. Whether this was done intentionally or by mistake is up for debate, Dr. Perlman notes. However, such studies provide the data needed to study behavior that may be an evolutionary precursor to a person’s desire to experience an altered mental state.

Dr. Perlman plans to conduct a larger study that will analyze hundreds of additional videos of spinning primates, including grizzly bears and pandas, who seem to enjoy the dizzying activity.