Today's useless fact - Why is yawning contagious?

First, let us dispense with the antiquated notion that a yawn is

the body's attempt to pump extra oxygen into our fatigued
systems. Scientists have shown that a person in an oxygen chamber
yawns just as much as anyone else. No, yawning seems to be tied
to more primal purposes, with contagion at the center of it. A
semiautomatic reflex that originates in the brain stem and marks
transitions from one mental state to another, yawning is
widespread throughout the animal kingdom, particularly among
carnivores. "Watch a pride of lions: when one cat opens its
mouth, pretty soon there's an outbreak. Although the precise
mechanism for its contagiousness remains unknown, yawning appears
to be a piece of ancient genetic wiring meant to help synchronize
clan behavior, a form of prelinguistic communication indicating
that it's time to move on to the next big thing. Think of it as a
way for, say, a Neanderthal to let his comrades know that the
nap's over; let's go bag us a woolly mammoth.