Scientists say it is millions of years old. But what is the point of kissing?

The act has been called many things. Centrifugal motion. Perpetual bliss. The thrill of the moment. Unstoppable. In technical terms, it is “non-agonistic interaction involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouth parts and no food transfer”.

Or, as her majesty Faith Hill might say, “This kiss”. And, it turns out, it’s also really old.

British scientists say they’ve traced the age of the kiss, to anywhere from 16 million to 21 million years ago, and have found that it was far more common among other species than previously understood.

Ants? They smooch. Fish? Kissers. Neanderthals? Yep, they puckered up, too – sometimes even with us.

But kissing, the researchers said, has always been something of a so-called evolutionary mystery. It doesn’t pre