[Animals] Do all animals go through adolescence?

[BirSaNN]

All species experience the bodily changes of puberty, but the social lessons that define the shift from childhood to adulthood are more nuanced.

Looking back on our teenage years often elicits a grimace — it's an awkward time, full of social faux pas, uncertainty and acne — but it's one that we all must pass through on our way to adulthood. 

But do other animals also experience adolescence? This period of life comprises both physiological and social changes. Unquestionably, other animals experience puberty, the cascade of hormonal and physiological changes that enable mating. But researchers such as Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, a cardiologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard University, argue that most, if not all, animals experience a period of adolescence too — what Natterson-Horowitz calls "wildhood" — that also includes the social shifts that youngsters must navigate as they transition into adulthood.

 

 

For a long time, adolescence was thought to be unique to humans, Natterson-Horowitz told Live Science. "But the more you peel that back, the more you find that while there are certain aspects of adolescence that are uniquely human, that period of transition that starts with the onset of puberty and ends when a mature adult emerges — that's universal."

Perhaps not surprisingly, in the species that are most closely related to us, such as chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), some of these changes are easily recognizable to humans. Aaron Sandel, a biological anthropologist and primatologist at the University of Texas at Austin, published a paper showing that young chimps experience a growth spurt that leaves them clumsy as they adjust to their new bodies.

link: https://www.livescience.com/animals/do-all-animals-go-through-adolescence