Do Animals Understand Death?

When an animal dies, other animals sometimes seem to react. Whether they understand what has happened is one of the most interesting open questions in science. This article describes what has been seen and what researchers argue about.

What have people observed?

Several striking cases. In 2018, an orca named Tahlequah carried her dead calf for 17 days, according to Smithsonian Magazine and Discover. The American Scholar reports that she covered more than 1,000 miles. In 2016, a doctoral student filmed members of three elephant families visiting the body of a dead matriarch, smelling and touching her and passing by repeatedly. Captive chimpanzees checked the body of an elderly female named Pansy for signs of life and cleaned bits of straw from her fur. In 2017, researchers in Zambia filmed a chimpanzee mother cleaning debris from the teeth of her dead son with a piece of grass. Inverse reports that magpies have been observed burying their dead under twigs of grass, which ethologist Marc Bekoff described as a “magpie funeral.”

How common is this?

Less common than headlines suggest, though carrying a dead infant is widely reported. Discover Wildlife says carrying dead infants is one of the most common death-related behaviors in animals. But Discover reports that when researcher Lonsdorf and colleagues studied chimpanzee mothers carrying infant corpses, they had only 33 cases to work with after 60 years of observing the same communities. Single events often make the news, and it is hard to know what is typical.

Do scientists agree that animals grieve?

No. Smithsonian Magazine says some scientists remain biased against the idea, and quotes zoologist Jules Howard saying that seeing grief in an orca rests on faith, not science. The magazine’s author argues that a growing body of evidence supports the view that animals are aware of death, can grieve, and sometimes mourn or ritualize their dead. On whales and dolphins in particular, Discover quotes zoologist Giovanni Bearzi and colleagues saying in 2018 that there has been little direct research and the matter is still open to investigation.

What other explanations are there?

Several. Discover Wildlife notes that it might help a mother to avoid abandoning her infant until she is sure it is dead, and that animals gathering around a corpse might be gathering information about a possible danger. Philosopher Susana Monsó tells the Boston Globe that the mother-infant bond is among the best-supported explanations, but that some mothers who carry corpses also feed on them, and dogs sometimes feed on their dead owners. She asks us to reconcile that with what we know about dogs’ affection.

What does it mean to “understand” death?

Monsó argues, in an essay in TIME, that we should not start from the complex human idea of death but from a “minimal concept of death.” She says the chimpanzees in one well-known case changed their behavior when a baby died, which suggests they understood. She also warns against assuming that grief is the only way to show understanding. A polar bear catching a seal, she says, might understand death as well as a mourning monkey mother does.

Why does it matter?

It tells us how deep our own habits go, and how little we know about animals. One report puts it this way: the useful question is not whether animals grieve but how they grieve. For related topics, see What Happens to a Dead Animal in Nature? and Ancestor Veneration Around the World.

Where can I read about specific animals?

See How Primates Respond to Their Dead Infants, Do Elephants Mourn Their Dead?, Orca Mothers Who Carry Their Dead Calves, Do Crows Hold Funerals for Their Dead?, How Ants and Other Insects Handle Their Dead, and Whale Falls: How a Whale’s Death Feeds the Deep Sea.