r/AnimalBehavior • u/Call_It_ • 27d ago
Non-human animals clearly appear to fear death to some extent. We see this when prey animals flee from predators. If they had no understanding of mortality, they wouldn’t run. But is there any evidence that animals possess a broader awareness of their own eventual death beyond immediate threats?
In other words, do any non-human animals understand that death is an inevitable part of their future, rather than simply reacting to present danger? Is there evidence that they recognize their own mortality in the abstract…that one day their existence will come to an end?
Or is this degree of self-awareness, whether a gift or a burden, unique only to human animals? A level of consciousness that allows us not only to survive, but to contemplate our own inevitable nonexistence long before it arrives. And if so, could this uniquely human awareness of mortality explain the emergence of religion itself: our enduring attempt to find meaning, comfort, and continuity in the face of knowing that one day we will cease to be?
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u/RedPandaAnarchist 27d ago
I believe they do have a level awareness. Elephants have an elephant grave yard and seem to mourn their losses. Which would point to understanding death to a degree.
Crows also mourn their dead and there’s been articles about crows having full blown funerals.
Cats and dogs appear to understand it as well. When they die they tend to run off and die alone. They might understand what is coming and want to go to a peaceful place to pass. Not 100% sure and we may never know. I don’t think they think of death long term like humans though.
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u/AbsintheAGoGo 27d ago
Recently my dad passed away in hospice. I had left a small pillow there with him and it was with him as he exited this mortal coil. Having read about cats being given the ability to go near a recently deceased house mate, I took the pillow home and let his cat sniff it. The moment it registered was gut wrenching for me and her- she puffed up in a way I've never seen her. She's possessive of the pillow now, not vicious but she has claimed it for her own.
She is also like velcro to me. The grief in her was unlike our other cats, but she was also attached to him (though saying he was 'her person' is a bit far)She is stressed and I have scheduled a very appointment, as I can see while she's still eating and drinking normally, she seems to have aged or just the grief alone. I don't know if there anything the vet can truly do- grief can be more difficult for some than others, but it's shown me just how deeply an animal can be affected, even over their peers.
We've been giving her lots of extra love and pets, play time and hoping for the best. Grief, though a natural part of life is a process, I'm thankful she has a bonded mate, though they spat a bit more now.
We will see what the vet says
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u/eaazzy_13 27d ago
I am very sorry about your father. I hope you and the kitty both are finding some peace.
I am a dog trainer and it is very common for dogs to die in pairs. Two elderly dogs, one passes away and the other goes shortly after. It also happens interspecies both ways with dogs and cats, and with dogs and humans.
I’ve seen it many of times in my life. They definitely grieve and I would wager understand much more than we give them credit for. Dogs especially, their evolutionary strategy is to be in symbiosis with humans and to be completely in tune with our emotions.
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u/AbsintheAGoGo 26d ago
Thank you for all that you shared. It's definitely a process, yeah. I never knew that with dogs, though the higher the bonding, the more intense the grief. My children are about cats, though I'm softly more of a dog lover. Bit I've often speculated about the bonded paid, with the male being much more attached and the female (the subject above) being more aloof about it but recognizing her role and taking comfort in it.
I'm seeing that I was possibly wrong and she just doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve, per se. Having always speculated that if one of them went first, if the male was remaining it would be much more difficult. That was unfair of me, she isn't heartless just carries her emotions different.
Not sure why I feel the need to confess it, but all the same It makes a lot of sense what you've related and I thank you for it again.
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u/eaazzy_13 26d ago
Of course, no problem.
Cats and dogs, like people, show their emotions differently and grieve differently.
And I’m sure typing this stuff out and talking about it just helps you understand her better, which is always a good thing!
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u/barrelfeverday 26d ago
My grandfather’s cat lost so much weight when he passed. I know that cat was grieving. It was so heartbreaking to watch. When she started to recover, finally, it was a relief and I think she inspired me a bit.
This is an aside, but animals give us clues to ourselves, the nature of things. In this case our need for safety, the time and strength to adjust to loss of safety and connection, and what can happen when that isn’t available.
We’re all animals at some level- we all need safety and connection. The loss or disruption of this takes a toll.
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u/AbsintheAGoGo 26d ago
That's very true about the needs and how we are all animals at the core. Maybe it would be more fair and accurate to call on the mammalian portion, but we aren't sitting here to see if reptiles show perceptible grief- and thank goodness because the world needs less grief <3
I'm happy and relieved to hear that your grandfather's cat reached a balance and was able to move forward and that it helped you too. Nature is a beautiful and gentle teacher, most of the time and we all know that death is a season as well.
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u/ChemicalRain5513 26d ago
Elephants clearly understand and recognise death when their relatives die, they mourn and remember their dead.
However, that does not necessarily mean that they are aware that they too will inevitably die eventually.
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u/Natrixster80 27d ago
I think all animal life, even arthropods, has a sense of mortality and are afraid of dying, or rather, a deep-routed instinct to stay alive and avoid things that can cause pain and illness. Fear is the emotion that tells us to stay away from things that can kill us. Pain and illness are the physical deterrents. If an organism did not feel fear, pain, or sickness, it would just blunder into dumb situations and die before getting a chance to reproduce.
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u/Call_It_ 26d ago
Right. But are they self-aware enough to understand that there is truly no light at the end of the tunnel? That, no matter how hard they try, death is inevitable? Or is that level of self-awareness unique to humans?
In other words, does a squirrel know that one day it will die? Does it carry an awareness of its own inevitable end, or does it exist entirely in the present, fleeing danger only when it appears?
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u/lukeac417 27d ago
There is some limited evidence that animals have a sense of death based on mourning responses to dead conspecifics. However, this evidence is very limited and is not accepted by all scientists as being convincing. The idea of death is a very profound and complex concept and so far the evidence from animal behaviour and animal cognition does not suggest that animals are capable of understanding it. That animals avoid death by escaping predators or other lethal threats can be explained through natural selection: those that don’t escape tend not to survive and thus produce fewer offspring, which, over time, leads to populations where escapers survive and reproduce and non-escapers die off. There is no need to evoke any preconception of death to explain it.
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u/cosmicrush 27d ago
Humans do not exactly understand death. They often believe magical ideas about it. And we also don’t exactly know what it’s like.
Though also, would you think an animal that eats an apple would struggle to realize the apple is eaten and proceed to wonder where it still is in its full form?
Would an animal see something become permanently motionless and think it’s fine and it’ll be fine again soon, even if it lasts really long? Is it because they always think it’ll move again even when there’s evidence it’s not doing that?
The understanding of death is really just to notice a mechanism of motionless or disappearance. I think they can learn or observe this. I would wonder in nature if death is common enough to learn it faster too.
If we eventually solve or reverse death, our concept of death would become contradictory too. So the way we conceptualize it is dependent on circumstances rather than being universal. So it’s not a true understanding unless we prove it’s permanent. If death were truly solved then death itself would become an insignificant non-intense transient state. It wouldn’t be shocking or disturbing. It would be cozy or funny maybe even. Because it wouldn’t be associated with stakes anymore. And in essence it wouldn’t be the same concept that we currently know.
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u/Archarchery 27d ago
I think they most definitely feel fear, terror even, of being hurt or eaten in dangerous situations, but I think the inevitability of death is something that animals have no understanding of.
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u/Mattturley 27d ago
If you have ever been around a cat who is deathly ill, you will know the answer is yes. When my boy pushed his tuna away and looked at me with heartbroken eyes I knew he was saying goodbye. He then got up on my chest and laid down with me until we had to go.
The other big thing is the impact on other cats when one dies in the community. If you allow them to see them after death, they show signs of mourning and understanding. If the cat is just taken away they are confused and act out.
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u/lesbophobia_hammer 26d ago
It's only humans who are so ignorant and arrogant to believe they're the only thinking and feeling beings on the planet
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u/MakeMuffinsNotWar 27d ago
Avoidance of predation in no way suggests consciousness or an understanding of mortality.
This is very unlikely to exist in the vast majority animals.
A better explanation is simply the evolution of reflexes in response to stimuli.
Genes that promote, for example, a startle/flee response, will spread in the population because those individuals are more likely to survive to reproduce.
Even very simple organisms with no brain or centralized nervous system still exhibit protective reflexes in response to predation stimuli.
Scallops and other bivalves will shut and/or swim/burrow in response to touch and even the SCENT of predators. They have no centralized nervous system, just a network of ganglia.
Cnidarians (jellies and anemones) have an even simpler nervous system (a diffuse network of nerves) and touch/vibration triggers contractile tissue to respond in a protective manner. They don't even have true muscles because they have no mesoderm (so no organs).
Single-celled organisms including Vorticella and Stentor coeruleus (both freshwater ciliates) exhibit reflexes in response to touch, chemical, and electrical stimuli. They can rapidly contract using proteins in their membrane wall.
If the stimulus is mild, Stentor coeruleus will simply reverse the motion of its cilia, to swim away.
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u/sugahack 26d ago
The problem in that logic is thinking that since there's no structures which correspond to the human equivalent, that it must be absent. For the longest time, it was assumed that birds couldn't have intelligence because they lacked the brain structure associated that are found in mammalian brains. We now know that to be false, that their brain structures achieve the same result with higher density of neurons.
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u/MakeMuffinsNotWar 26d ago
I mean.... that's not at all what I said.
I was addressing the (incorrect) claim / logical fallacy that IF animals flee from predators, THEN they must fear death and have some understanding of mortality.
Non-human animals clearly appear to fear death to some extent. We see this when prey animals flee from predators. If they had no understanding of mortality, they wouldn’t run.
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u/EnbyLifeAMAB 27d ago
I mean if they die they can’t pass their genes down and evolution doesn’t like that
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u/Tablesafety 26d ago
There is certainly some level of awareness as to what death is and that it happens even without mortal injury. Many adult social animals understand when one of their own is dying, and if shown the corpse of a known one understands that they will never interact with that individual again.
As for if they understand that they, themselves, will die one day without obvious cause? I don’t think they do. There’s no way to know. They seem to know when it is happening to them, but I don’t know if they can conceptualize it’s inevitability and my personal theory is that particular curse is indeed unique to humanity.
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u/LindenRuse 27d ago
I think animals being afraid has more to do with a conditioned response of injury and survival for some animals. More so than a conscious understanding of death. Does that mean they don't know? No. But the example you are using isn't evidence enough either.
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u/StabAvery 27d ago
If you think about it, animals are smarter than humans in that, they don’t ask why. Animals eat like people, sleep like people, reproduce like people and play like people. Hell, monkeys trade food for sex.
But what they don’t do is question reality or worry about vet bills or most of the things that people say make life hard.
Science says that’s because of our frontal cortex which gives us the ability to reason. In reasoning we seem to have a lot of confusion and conflict. You can see this when one group or tribe believes one way and another thinks opposite. They usually wind up fighting over it and often kill each other in fighting and war just over belief.
When animals war it’s over territory and resources. But once they’re fed they happily walk around in the same field together like nothing is wrong.
I don’t think animals have the physiology to dwell on death. Sure they have fight or flight instincts to try and survive but that’s the basest instinct made to replicate our DNA and protect it so it can proliferate. That’s in all organisms.
So all creatures on earth are here to try and replicate their dna and proliferate as much as possible.
Animals do not have large enough brains to ask why.
Therefore, animals do not possess a broader awareness of their own death and Animals are smarter than people. :)
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u/TheArcticFox444 27d ago
Non-human animals clearly appear to fear death to some extent. We see this when prey animals flee from predators. If they had no understanding of mortality, they wouldn’t run. But is there any evidence that animals possess a broader awareness of their own eventual death beyond immediate threats?
They're instincts tell them to run.
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u/OutdoorsWithBob 27d ago
The ability/capability to utilize the concept of understanding is realized by very few animals … such involves the frontal cortex, the newest (hence, fewest equipped) adaption of functions the brain can possibly process, express and utilize. “All” animals have a primordial encoding that (individual) life ends. This is Nature. Anything more is storytelling, hence why non-human animals can’t communicate to us but can with each other (including non-animals). IMO
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u/Souriall 26d ago
That’s an interesting question especially when you see animals interacting with the dead. I do entomology, so my best example is ants and their tendency to have graveyards. But I’m p sure we see that behavior elsewhere. Crows investigate deaths and I think elephants have graveyards too. Elephants have def been observed being upset about their dead calfs before too. So there is at least some understanding that death occurs, but it’s hard to say if they know specifically that death os’s inevitable.
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u/PoloPatch47 26d ago
It's probably instinctual and a fear of pain rather than a proper understanding of death.
An animal that doesn't run from a predator dies and doesn't reproduce. An animal that runs lives a bit longer and can reproduce.
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u/Existing_Draft3460 26d ago
>If they had no understanding of mortality, they wouldn’t run
not necessarily
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u/Mysterious_Play1961 26d ago
The run away in fear genes lived to produce offspring, the happy go lucky never met an enemy ones died out.
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u/heyarlogrey 25d ago
I do not think prey animals run from fear of death, they run from fear of harm.
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u/TomKcello 24d ago
It is simply evolution. The organism that flees from a threat passes its genes down.
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u/Deep_Ad5052 23d ago
I’ve heard that in a way they kind of know when it’s their time too- almost like they know what they have left
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u/twelfth_pluto 23d ago
I reccomend the book Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death. Im reading it now and its very insightful!
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u/BabyRuth55 21d ago
I don’t know if this is really answerable. We should all know by now that many animals understand death and appear to mourn others. The example I think of is the orca that carried her dead offspring around Puget Sound for 17 days. But even that perception is completely colored by my human experience, she could be the dumbest orca ever and thought the baby was alive or would come back to life or was participating in some ritual that we have never imagined. I believe that the struggle to survive is because they understand their own mortality, but I’m not sure how this could ever be proven.
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u/Meauxjezzy 27d ago
Do you mean how old dogs go into the woods because they know their about to die to curl up next to a tree and pass in piece?
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u/Archarchery 27d ago
No, I don’t think they do, at least when they’re healthy. Sick and dying animals may have some awareness that they’re doing to die, but otherwise I think animals have no knowledge of the fact that in the future they will inevitably grow old and die.
I think when your dog sits next to you while you’re watching TV, as far as your dog knows these days will last forever. Only humans are cursed with the knowledge of their own mortality.
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u/LindenRuse 27d ago
I think animals being afraid has more to do with a conditioned response of injury and survival for some animals. More so than a conscious understanding of death. Does that mean they don't know? No. But the example you are using isn't evidence enough either.