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So are chimpanzees actually aware of death?

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Squee Grand Master

Squee

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How Chimpanzees Mourn Their Dead

 

500x_chimpcorpse.jpg

 

Chimpanzees are our closest primate relative, and have a number of behaviors we once thought were human only: they empathize, cooperate, and have a sense of self. But how do they deal with the most distressing event possible — death?

 

Two studies this being published in Current Biology this week show a remarkable amount about how chimpanzees mourn, and the effect that death has on them — sometimes in ways very similar to us, sometimes shockingly different.

 

In what is an incredibly rare occurrence, cameras recorded the death and mourning of two groups of chimps — one with an elderly female, and the other with the death of two infants. When an adult chimp dies unexpectedly or traumatically, the tribe's reaction is often loud and violent. Both times here, the reaction from those close to the dead was very different.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d89SlFc3qjI&feature=player_embedded

 

At a UK safari park, three chimps gathered around another, elder female of the group as she neared death. Pansy was more than 50 years old, and had been slowing down for some time. For days before her death, the group was very quiet, and paid her lots of attention. Just before she died, the group continually groomed and caressed her, which researchers think was partly to test for signs of life. When she died, the group left, but her adult daughter came back, and spent the night with the body.

 

The next day the keepers removed the corpse, and the other chimps remained subdued. For a number of days they avoided sleeping on the platform where she died — usually a prized location, and remained generally quiet for long period afterwards.

 

At the opposite end of the age spectrum, a group of researchers were studying chimpanzees in Guinea, and observed the death of two infants from flu-like respiratory infections. The mothers responded by carrying around the bodies of their children for weeks or months, to the point where the corpse was mummified. They would take them everywhere, groom them, and take them to sleep. Slowly, over the course of this period, the mothers would begin to let the other chimps come in contact with the dead babies for longer and longer periods. They would increase the length of time they could handle being separate from the bodies, even allowing other young chimpanzees to play with them (like in the video below). They appeared to slowly and gradually accept the passing of their young.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl-JWtXJBX4&feature=player_embedded

 

Our furry cousins obviously have an inkling of death, grief, and empathy, and understanding their view on mortality raises interesting questions about our own. How different is a mother chimpanzee's veneration for their dead child different from Victorian trend of post-mortem photography? How far is it from burying the dead? The chimpanzees seem to have no distaste or repulsion to the dead, even keeping them around for months. Why don't they have any aversion to the potentially disease causing bodies? Is there a chimpanzee afterlife they believe in?

 

James Anderson of the University of Stirling says of the safari park chimps:

 

"Several phenomena have at one time or another been considered as setting humans apart from other species: reasoning ability, language ability, tool use, cultural variation, and self-awareness, for example, but science has provided strong evidence that the boundaries between us and other species are nowhere near to being as clearly defined as many people used to think. The awareness of death is another such psychological phenomenon. The findings we've described, along with other observations of how chimpanzees respond to dead and dying companions, indicate that their awareness of death is probably more highly developed than is often suggested. It may be related to their sense of self-awareness, shown through phenomena such as self-recognition and empathy towards others."

 

http://io9.com/5524123/how-chimpanzees-mourn-their-dead

 

 

Amazing.

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vertsk8er419 Grand Master

vertsk8er419

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actually i'm not sure if they're just accepting that their child has died, and respecting it's corpse as it is, lifeless and mummified, as a signification of their bond, or if they're just farting around and being dumb monkeys. i'll go with the former, because i feel that at this point in the evolution of the chimp, it should be able to realize that's it's own child has deceased and even go so far as to perform a sort of ritualistic honoring (quite humanizing i know) of the dead. i don;t know, i'm tired and spouting my stream of consciousness

 

EDIT: (to my post above) in saying 'alot to unlearn' i mean our many false preconceptions of death. monkey's just keep it real and accept that shit.

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awepittance Grand Master

awepittance

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I totally believe it, elephants are known to go visit graveyard's of their dead and move around the bones with their trunks while appearing emotionally disturbed. If we were able to study more closely dolphins and whales we'd probably observe similar behavior

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azatoth Grand Master

azatoth

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I totally believe it, elephants are known to go visit graveyard's of their dead and move around the bones with their trunks while appearing emotionally disturbed. If we were able to study more closely dolphins and whales we'd probably observe similar behavior

 

isn't the elephant graveyard thing more of a myth. while checking it out on wiki i stumbled on the article of elephant intelligence. pretty amazing stuff, such as altruism, tool use and death rituals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_intelligence

 

i think animals are much smarter and aware than we give them credit for. dogs for instance are the only animal than can understand human emotions and look at human faces like we do, by quickly looking at the right side of the face, which tells us what mood the person is. this is obviously due to ~10000 years of cooperation.

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Hoodie Grand Master

Hoodie

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I totally believe it, elephants are known to go visit graveyard's of their dead and move around the bones with their trunks while appearing emotionally disturbed. If we were able to study more closely dolphins and whales we'd probably observe similar behavior

 

my biology teacher told me about something she saw on television about this elephant matriarch that had a calf that died when it was fairly young. the matriarch left the herd for like nine months to mourn and then when she returned to the herd, during their migration, whenever they passed the bones of the calf, she'd pick them up and cradle them. it's so damn sad :cry:

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Guest Lady kakapo

Guest Lady kakapo

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i think animals are much smarter and aware than we give them credit for. dogs for instance are the only animal than can understand human emotions and look at human faces like we do, by quickly looking at the right side of the face, which tells us what mood the person is. this is obviously due to ~10000 years of cooperation.

 

There was a trend of suggesting that any kind of canine emotional intelligince was anthropomorphic nonesense, but now it's swinging back the way, correctly in my opinion. I think anybody who has had a half decent working breed type dog (working terriers/collies, the retrievers) knows how smart they are and develops a two way emotional relationship with them that isn't simply anthropomorphic projection. I do often wonder what type of dogs they use in these studies though. Take 20 yorkshire terriers and it's no wonder you come to the conclusion that dogs are stupid.

 

 

They rip people's faces off and eat their genitals after all.

 

You've never been to the Bigg Market then? You have no idea what a Geordie slapper can do to a man if the kebab shop is shut.

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Squee Grand Master

Squee

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OMG , what kind of life will this kid get ??? abortion was the best option in my opinion , i mean , what the hell man. Stupid mom

 

The baby died, man... luckily I might add.

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kaini Grand Master

kaini

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not on youtube anymore, but the documentary 'why dogs smile and chimpanzees cry' is well worth a watch for anyone interested in animal cognition

even if it does tug on the viewers heartstrings rather shamelessly in places

 

trailer here: http://www.videodetective.com/titledetails.aspx?PublishedID=834698

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TwiddleBot Mentor

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i dunno it looks more to me like the chimp is not understanding that the little one is dead/lifeless.

 

interesting stuff indeed.

 

http://babyfaithhope.blogspot.com/

 

i read the article the same way as keltoi.. but fair enough. even a lot of humans are unable to accept it when their loved ones die... they pretend they are alive in the afterlife somewhere. fuck, even though i'm not religious per se, if my close partner died, i'd still probably just pretend she was alive and keep talking to her

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Squee Grand Master

Squee

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That made me lol IRL. The way he flaps his ears between strokes is like hes mega pleased with it. Haha.

 

I know I'm being overly sceptical here, but I would like to see the unedited footage of this because it sort of annoys me that it's so obvious they've edited the video to make it seem as if it just paints away...

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