Animals Respond to Death in Many Ways. Mourning Might Be One of Them.

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Some species consume or bury the dead, while other animals protect and carry bodies for days. Researchers are trying to interpret the behavior.

So, do animals understand what death is? Do they mourn as humans do when a loved one dies?These questions can be hard to answer, in part because they are sometimes entangled. “It’s a very different question to ask whether animals understand death and whether they can grieve,” says Susana Monsó, a philosopher and ethicist at the Spanish National Distance Education University who specializes in animal minds. Her book,, explores how animals understand death.

Another difficulty is that animals can’t verbalize their internal emotions. Luckily, the concept of grief “is something that you can actually parse into smaller things such as behavioral responses,” according to chimp researcher André Gonçalves of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University in Inuyama, Japan. These include the measurable changes in behavior that occur after a death: decreased appetite, sleeping disturbances, decreased sociality and increased stress.

Of course, the mere presence of these behaviors doesn’t always mean an animal is mourning. Careful empirical research can help separate stimuli responses from true mourning. Take termites, for example. Some species either bury or

 

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Perhaps cruelty is the characteristics propelled the human race to the top of the food chain after all..

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