A new study by UK scientists suggests something surprising about laughter: humans and great apes may still be “laughing in time” the same way their shared ancestors did around 15 million years ago.

Researchers analysed hundreds of laughter recordings from human children and young apes—including chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans—captured during play and tickling. What they were really listening for wasn’t just sound, but structure: the timing, breaks, and rhythm inside each burst of laughter.

And that’s where things got interesting. Despite millions of years of evolution, the basic rhythm of laughter looked remarkably familiar across species. Apes closer to humans, like chimpanzees and bonobos, showed faster, more human-like patterns. Gorillas and orangutans were slower—but still followed the same underlying timing structure.

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What makes human laughter different

“In a way, we are very similar to other great apes because we’ve been laughing in a similar way for 15 million years,” Chiara De Gregorio, a zoologist at the University of Warwick, told Associated Press.

Humans, however, stand out for one big reason: flexibility. We don’t just laugh—we control how we laugh. It can be loud, soft, polite, fake, contagious, or completely uncontrollable depending on the situation.

Scientists say this ability to shape laughter for social context is something apes don’t show to the same degree, even though the core rhythm remains shared.

A clue to how speech began

Published in Communications Biology, the study suggests that this ancient laughter pattern may date back to a common ancestor of humans and great apes. More importantly, it could help explain how human speech evolved.

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Because laughter already involves controlled breathing and vocal timing, researchers think it may have acted as a stepping stone—training the brain and voice for the more complex demands of language.

In other words, every time we laugh today, we might be echoing a sound that has been part of our evolutionary story for millions of years.