On another forum, we have been discussing the concept of "games", and more specifically-although-also-generally, "play".
Some time ago I saw a documentary arguing that domestication of animals involved restarining them in an adolescent state; in this state, the inputs that would trigger fight/flight instead trigger happy/fun. With the onset of adulthood, usually, this shifts over to normal fight/flight.
Thus, you tug a puppies tail, it thinks you are playing. You tug a feral dogs tail, it tries to bite your hand off.
Now for the question. In thinking about this, I am wondering if there is any indication of play behaviour in non-mammals. I can't think of coming across any myself but I wonder if anyone else happens to know of any. Is play an evolved trait, amd is it a mammalian trait? Its easy to think of lots of mammals with play behaviour. But theres a lot of non-mammalian evolutionary history and I wonder (I know we can't determine) if play behaviour was likely among any of those. At least, by looking at the modern range, it should be possible to determine if play is strictly mammalian or not.
Any thoughts?