{"id":548288,"date":"2025-06-10T14:04:47","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T17:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=548288"},"modified":"2025-06-10T14:04:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T17:04:47","slug":"lice-the-origin-of-the-kiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/lice-the-origin-of-the-kiss\/","title":{"rendered":"Lice, the origin of the kiss?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_548289\" style=\"max-width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright vertical\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-548289 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/RPF-notas-piolho-2024-12-800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"606\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/RPF-notas-piolho-2024-12-800.jpg 800w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/RPF-notas-piolho-2024-12-800-250x189.jpg 250w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/RPF-notas-piolho-2024-12-800-700x530.jpg 700w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/RPF-notas-piolho-2024-12-800-120x91.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">Gerardo Gomez\u2009\/\u2009AFP via Getty Images<\/span>Among chimpanzees, the act of removing parasites is important in social dynamics<span class=\"media-credits\">Gerardo Gomez\u2009\/\u2009AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>As well as being a display of affection, the human behavior of kissing, a widespread social custom in many cultures, may originate in good hygiene. This is the theory suggested by Portuguese primatologist and evolutionary psychologist Adriano Lameira, from the University of Warwick, UK, based on observations of our closest cousins, the other great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans). According to Lameira, primates that developed terrestrial habits also became more prone to infestations, making the social behavior of picking parasites off each other even more important. The final stage of this grooming habit, after parting the fur to find fleas, lice, or ticks attached to the skin, often involves using the lips and sucking to remove the unwanted guest. When the evolutionary process created naked primates (human beings) this social behavior may have been transformed, giving rise to the kiss: a manifestation of trust and closeness. Do you like it when someone tousles your hair? This feeling may be from the same origin (<em>Evolutionary Anthropology<\/em>, October 17).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Human kissing may have arisen through evolution of a hygiene habit among primates","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1651],"tags":[231,266],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-548288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","tag-evolution","tag-zoology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":548297,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548288\/revisions\/548297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548288"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=548288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}