BBC Media｜接吻在进化史上的起源是什么？

What are the evolutionary origins of kissing?

Humans do it, chimpanzees do it, even polar bears do it. And now a study has shown that kissing likely evolved about 21 and a half million years ago.

The mouth-on-mouth kiss is actually something of a biological puzzle, with no obvious survival or reproductive benefits, so the Oxford University-led team gathered evidence of animals that kiss each other on the mouth and worked out their evolutionary relationship to each other and to humans.

This revealed that kissing probably evolved in the last common ape ancestor of humans, chimps and bonobos.

The study suggested that Neanderthals probably kissed too, and that they may have smooched with modern humans when the two species lived alongside each other.

The researchers hope that the insight will encourage more scientists to gather data that could finally help solve the evolutionary mystery of why we and many other animals kiss.

词汇表
chimpanzee [ˌtʃɪmpænˈziː] n. 黑猩猩
mouth-on-mouth adj. 嘴对嘴的，口对口的
biological puzzle [ˌbaɪəˈlɒdʒɪkl ˈpʌzl] 生物学谜题
reproductive [ˌriːprəˈdʌktɪv] adj. 繁殖的，生殖的
ape ancestor [ˈeɪp ˈænsestə(r)] 猿类祖先，类人猿祖先
chimp [tʃɪmp] n. 黑猩猩（同chimpanzee）
bonobo [ˈbɒnəbəʊ] n. 倭黑猩猩
Neanderthal [niˈændətɑːl] n. 尼安德特人（居住在欧洲及西亚的古人类）
smooch [smuːtʃ] vi. 接吻，拥吻
insight [ˈɪnsaɪt] n. 发现，洞察，深刻见解
evolutionary [ˌiːvəˈluːʃənri] adj. 进化的，演变的

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