This article was originally published on Nov. 18, 2021.
If love is life’s greatest mystery, then perhaps its second-greatest mystery is whether humans are alone in experiencing it. We talk about lovebirds and puppy love, but biologists are cautioned against anthropomorphizing their animal subjects and assigning human traits and meaning where they don’t belong. Instead, scientists scan brains, measure hormone production and conduct “speed dating for pandas,” all of which could help answer the question, “Do animals fall in love?” And if so, how, and why?
Understanding love in animals requires a solid grounding in how scientists define and measure love in humans. “There are different theories about how to slice up the pie for this thing that we call love,” says Bianca Acevedo, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “One widely accepted perspective is that you can slice it up in terms of passionate/romantic love, and ...
