Cows not only have best friends, but they’re sad when they’re separated from them.

Considering the way we treat cows, it’s a little disturbing to know that they have a rich emotional life.

But we’re charmed to know that giving a cow a buddy is a sure-fire way to cheer it up!

If you never became a scientist when you grew up, you missed out on your chance to tickle animals for a living to see if they laugh.

If you’ve seen a penguin get tickled, it was likely Cookie from the Cincinnati Zoo because she really does have the best laugh.

Now, we don’t recommend trying this at home (because you should never bring home a penguin), but try not to burst out laughing when Cookie gets tickled. We’ve set the video about 1 minute in, but feel free to scroll back as well to hear researchers talk more about her.

Have you ever noticed that when you walk towards your fish tank, your fish might come say hello? That might not just be because he/she thinks it’s snack time but is genuinely showing you some recognition.

For now, there’s just one study that’s been done on archerfish, but it did indeed find that they could recognize a human face among dozens.

If you have a guinea pig, you’ve no doubt already told all your friends about “popcorning.”

Popcorning is when the little creatures suddenly “pop” up in the air and change directions, usually with a little squeak. And plenty of research has been done to make sure it’s not a sign of something less amusing. (Scientists have also come up with a much more serious term for it – “pronking.”)

As far as we can tell, when your guinea pig popcorns/pronks, it means you’ve made its day! Take a look in slow-mo here.

(Oh, and chinchillas do it too!)

Bees are some of the most important creatures on earth. And while most of us react to them with a swat, they’re really not out to hurt you.

These hard-working pollinators (of which there are more than 20,000 varieties) can sometimes doze off on the job. Honeybees, for example, just fall right over and take a nap. Other bees, like the globe mallow bee, even snuggle up with one another inside of flowers.

Bees don’t have eyelids, so you can’t actually catch them getting shut-eye, per se, but when they stop moving their antennae and are perfectly still, it might just be nap time.

It’s true – they use it as a tool to crack open shellfish and they store it in a tiny, furry underarm “pocket” for safekeeping.

They’re not the smartest creatures on Earth, but since we destroyed large swathes of their habitat, the least humans could do was work hard to keep them from going extinct.

Breeding programs around the world have worked pretty well. Giant panda populations have increased by 17% over the last 10 years.

They’re still classified as a “vulnerable” species, but no longer endangered.

35 years ago, landmines were placed on the shore of the Falkland Islands’ Yorke Bay to maim invading British soldiers. The mines are still there and can easily harm humans that go near the beach, which has been blocked off.

But that makes it the perfect spot for Magellanic penguins to thrive since they aren’t heavy enough to set off the mines.

In fact, the beach is in fairly pristine ecological shape as a result.

It takes a while for all babies to develop fine motor control, but not all babies can squirt water out of their noses.

We have to admit that baby elephants look pretty hilarious as they try to get control over those trunks.

Not all acorns grow into oaks, but a good number of the trees have been accidentally propogated by squirrels that buried the nuts and forgot to retrieve them.

So squirrels are responsible for reforesting areas and allowing more trees to absorb CO2. Thanks, little environmentalists!

Dogs measure time in scent. That’s right, dogs smell time.

Different times of day have different scents and your scent fading away is a good indication that you’ve been gone too long.

It’s true of cats too. When we snuggle with our pets, everyone gets a boost of beneficial neurohormones.

And we keep each other healthy as well!

Aren’t pets the best?

Honey bees emit a vibrational pulse that might be an expression of surprise.

That’s right, they basically say “oops” when they accidentally nudge their neighbor.

Ok, so we can only confirm that this happened in one film – The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

But we still want to believe that dogs are so excited that they have to have their tails CGI’d to fake any other emotion.

Based on their surroundings and age, goats can develop different “accents” over time.

And just like people who live in the same region, eventually, they start to sound alike even if they’re originally from somewhere else.

Researchers have overheard dolphin moms practicing a signature whistle weeks before birth and shortly after.

We assume they use that whistle to recognize each other later on.

We have just a few videos of it happening, but it appears that in some cases, a mother elephant’s female herdmates will gather around her at birth and trumpet the arrival of her calf.

It’s like a baby shower without all the horrible games.

Dogs have a pretty limited range of things they can dream about – food, chasing things, and you.

So it shouldn’t surprise us that we might make an appearance in the dreams of our dogs once in a while. Hopefully not the ones where the spend the whole time kicking in their sleep!

Have you ever eaten something so delicious that you break into song? (Then we’ll have what you’re having!)

Well, it turns out that gorillas get so stoked about a good meal that they hum little tunes to themselves while enjoying their food.

As for humans, it’s a lot less cute when you make noises while you eat, unless you’re alone.

If you like it then you better put a ring on it. Or at least a pebble if you want to mate for life as a male penguin.

It’s only been observed in two types of penguins, but females accept pebbles like one would a diamond ring.

Luckily, they don’t have to plan weddings.

The tiny narrow-mouthed frogs of Peru have been observed to have a close relationship with large spiders.

They’re like bodyguards that ward off prey and help find food at the same time.

We know crows are clever, but we didn’t know they had a sense of humor.

But it turns out they intentionally deceive one another for fun.

Hatebeak is a death metal band whose lead singer, Waldo, is a grey parrot

They released their album The Number of the Beak in 2015 with Reptilian Records, but they never tour so as not to annoy the bird.

Otters hold hands in pairs and in groups (which are called a “raft”) while they eat, sleep, and rest to keep from losing one another.

Sometimes they even wrap sea plants around their hands to make a tether.

While it’s ceremonial, dogs outrank their handlers so that all signals they give can be interpreted as a direct order.

As one military man said on Reddit: “It’s so every indicator that the dog has found something (excessive sniffing, pointing, barking, etc) that they’re trained to detect, is acted upon as if it were a lawful, direct order.”

Others say it’s to keep officers from mishandling dogs, but we’re guessing it’s more out of respect than anything.

Technically it’s called “covering behavior” and the objects (shells, other creatures, or anything else nearby) protect the creatures.

But they also use “hats” to keep UV light off of them – so that’s basically a sun hat!

Squirrels are considered asocial animals, so it surprised scientists to learn that they will indeed adopt motherless pups.

But they tend to only do this for extended family (which they can somehow sense).

Not only do alligators break for manatees, but if a gator doesn’t see one coming, the manatees feel perfectly comfortable going up to them and giving them a nudge. And alligators heed the right of way on the ocean highway!

Who would have guessed?

We don’t know why because they don’t look terribly elegant while doing it, but ducks just can’t resist catching a wave.

Part scientific study part anecdotal evidence, the University of Leicester reports that slow music calms down cows. Less stress allows them to produce more milk.

Milk production went up by as much as 3 percent when cows listened to R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge over Troubled Water.”

Meanwhile, they are not fans of The Beatles’ “Back in the U.S.S.R.”