One of five wolf pups rescued from the edge of the Funny River wildfire in Alaska on May 27, 2014, is cared for at the veterinary facility of the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage. Photo: AP Photo/Alaska Zoo, John Gomes/MCT

When someone near you yawns, you yawn too. So do chimpanzees and baboons. Even dogs do it. They all seem to "catch" yawns. But why? Scientists think it is a sign that these animals have empathy.

Empathy is when you feel what someone else is feeling. People who have a lot of empathy are more likely to catch yawns. If you are around people you feel close to, you are more likely to catch a yawn. The same goes for other primates, like monkeys.

Dogs can also catch yawns. But they don't yawn when other dogs do it. Instead, they yawn when people yawn. Dogs yawn even more if they get along very well with their owner.

Field Trip

Some scientists in Japan wanted to find out if dogs yawn because they spend so much time near humans. They wanted to know if dogs were born knowing how to yawn. The scientists thought the dogs might have learned by watching humans.

Dogs are skilled at reading human behaviors, the scientists said. They wondered if that skill caused them to yawn. They also wanted to know if any other animals could catch a yawn, aside from apes and chimps of course.

To find out, the scientists decided to study how wolves yawn. Wolves are the closest relative of dogs. If dogs were born knowing how to yawn, wolves might be too.

So the scientists went to a zoo near Tokyo. In the zoo was a pack of 12 wolves. There was a mother, a father and their 10 offspring. The scientists spent five months watching the wolves. They paid attention to when they yawned.

Scientists only looked at certain wolf yawns. They were interested in yawns when wolves were awake and relaxed. When they saw that kind of yawn, the scientists wrote down which wolf did it. They also watched the other wolves nearby to see if they were looking at the wolf who yawned.

Yawning Wolves

After one wolf yawned, the scientists then watched the nearby wolves for the next three minutes. They wanted to see if any of them yawned. If they did, they wrote down the time between the first yawn and the next yawn.

The scientists also watched the wolves when no yawning happened. They wanted to see if the wolves yawned just anytime.

The scientists found that one wolf yawning could make another wolf yawn. But it happened more often if the two animals were friends. If wolves could see the yawns, they were more likely to yawn.

The scientists think that makes sense. Yawning together makes the wolves feel more connected. It helps them get along as a pack.

Wolves often caught yawns from wolves they were friendly with. They caught them less often from wolves that were not their friends. The scientists think that proves the wolves feel empathy. They want to study if other animals do also.