Are people the only animal that cry?

timence

No, although research has found that people seem to be the only animal that cries 'emotional' tears. Elephants, bears and dogs have been found to shed tears also. http://ask.yahoo.com/20030313.html May 18 12, 3:42 AM

star_gazer

Marmoset infant monkeys cry for attention. They also cry when older to signal to an adult that they want to be carried. "Chimpanzees do make upset vocalizations when they are being weaned by their mothers or have lost their mother or other individual," says Anne Pusey, ecology, evolution and behavior professor at the University of Minnesota. She also directs the Jane Goodal Institute's Center for Primate Studies. "They whimper and cry and scream. When we hear these calls, the emotion involved seems obvious. However, they do not weep in the sense of producing tears. I have seen an adolescent male whimpering when he lost sight of his older brother with whom he had been traveling." Infants of many mammalian species, including rats, cry. Moreover, when a baby rat cries, often his mother brings the fallen pup back into the nest. This is probably a straight-forward communication as it is with humans. However, psychologists at the University of Iowa aren't convinced. The Iowan researchers can induce the same crying sounds by producing large decreases and then increases in blood flow. The blood flow also lowers when baby rats get cold. Thus, they conclude rat babies cry in the same way that we sneeze. Of course, the rat baby could also be crying because he's cold and wants his mother to know. All young mammals make cries when separated from their mother, says Jaak Panksepp, a psychologist at Bowling Green State University. If you're willing to call this crying, then "certainly other animals show this emotional response," he says. "Some of us take seriously that animals do have emotions." Charles Darwin said that the keeper of the Indian elephants at the London Zoo told him the elephants would sometimes weep from sorrow. http://www.wonderquest.com/weep2.htm May 18 12, 3:42 AM