“He could do anything to see her smile!
He could jump into the deepest sea!
But he couldn’t tolerate her smile when he fell!
The way she twisted her lips with impish glee!”
In the Book The Naked Ape; Desmond talks about the lip smacking of Primates and then humans after which it is difficult to look at lips! I Am sure you would not look at lips the same way again!
Everyone would have seen how a monkey pair removes the ticks and I still remember how my mother used to tell me when that she would make a monkey remove lice from my cousin’s long hair since she used to move too much! She used to say that the Monkey will knock with his knuckles on her head if she moved and of course eat whatever insect comes out as a quick snack!
How are these two connected? Read on!
Now the only way to keep skin clean of parasites and later on disease is to keep the ticks and other infestations under check. If there are areas which cannot be reached by the primate then the only solution is social grooming, the development of a friendly mutual-aid system!
This can be seen in a wide range of both bird and mammal species, but it reaches a peak of expression amongst the higher primates!
So apparently special grooming invitation signals have been evolved here and social ‘cosmetic’ activities are prolonged and intense.
When a groomer monkey approaches a groomee monkey, the former signals its intentions to the latter with a characteristic facial expression. It performs a rapid lip-smacking movement, often sticking its tongue out between each smack! The groomee can signal its acceptance of the groomer’s approach by adopting a relaxed posture, perhaps offering a particular region of its body to be groomed.
This lip-smacking action has evolved as a special ritual out of the repeated particle-tasting movements that take place during a bout of fur-cleaning! Apparently whatever comes out of the grooming session is rapidly put in the mouth! It can be some dust or some tick or even parts of food and even crap!
By speeding them up and making them more exaggerated and rhythmic, it has been possible to convert them into a conspicuous and unmistakable visual signal!
his was written in 1967! Now the new research has come up with new findings about lip smacking!
According to the Primate Rescue Center in Kentucky, lip-smacking is a social behavior that brings about friendly interactions between monkeys in a social group. Most of the time, a monkey will lip smack to a more superior monkey as a sign of submission. It can also be a sign of affection or contentment.
Moreover, the researchers mentioned that lip-smacks were more likely to be done when the risk of discontinuation of the interaction by the recipient was high! For example, chimps would lip-smack when grooming vulnerable body parts. The researchers said that groomers were also more likely to lip-smack during face-to-face grooming, where the visual facet of the gesture could be perceived.
In another new study, researchers established that “lip-smacking,” of chimps, happens in the same timing range as human mouths when they speak!
It was previously observed in other ape species that their lip-smacking movements were measured at around five hertz, whereas spoken words from different human languages fall somewhere between two to seven hertz.
The researchers observed that whenever a chimpanzee was grooming another it was somewhat similar to a hairdresser interacting with its customer!
This, along with what Desmond says means that the Human Behaviour of Lip movement or blowing kisses is actually an invitation to groom or eat the parasites on your body! That is lip service for you! A great service though to the film industry especially the Malayalam film industry is by the birthday celebrity Mohanlal Viswanathan! Or Laletan as we all call him!
Miss his early movies though but like his recent comeback with movies like Dhrishyam. Keep up the good work!
Now apply some lip balm and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!
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