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Loading...4 Animals Who Mourn Their Dead
Western scrub jays hold what we would call funerals when they encounter a dead member of their species. Teresa Iglesias and colleagues from the University of California at Davis noted that jays, on seeing a dead bird, gather around it; in the journal Animal Behavior, they write that this behavior may have evolved from needing to warn other birds of dangers.
The scientists conducted experiments in which they placed a number of objects into residential yards and observed how the jays reacted. The objects included different colored pieces of wood, dead jays, mounted stuffed jays and great horned owls.
The jays were indifferent to the wood. They gathered together and issued alarm calls on seeing the mounted horned owls, apparently because they thought they were predators. They sometimes mobbed the stuffed jay, a behavior displayed when seeing a competitor or a sick bird.
But their behavior towards the dead birds was the most significant. Not only did the jays issue alarm calls to warn others far away, but they stopped foraging for food for days. As the BBC explains, after finding the dead bird,
The jays then gathered around the dead body, forming large cacophonous aggregations. The calls they made, known as “zeeps”, “scolds” and “zeep-scolds”, encouraged new jays to attend to the dead.
The scientists wrote that just the sight of a dead bird was enough to make the jays seek to share this information to warn other birds of possible dangers, even “without witnessing the struggle and manner of death.”
Jays are not the only animals who scientists have observed taking notice of their dead.
Photo by Eliya
Read more: animal emotions, animal intelligence, blue jays, chimpanzees, elephants, giraffes
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+ add your ownThank you for sharing.
This is ridiculous. I believe all sentient beings mourn the deaths of members of their herd, pride or family unit. Dogs are first that come to mind, there are many cases of dogs traveling and a companion is killed by a vehicle and the dog stays by the body of their dead companion. I have watched a fox mourn the death of her kit, killed by a vehicle. The remaining kit, having lost it's littermate went on to play with a neighbor's cat until she was old enough to move out on her own. I have watched deer mourn the death of their fawn, adult offspring or mate. They vocalize, they pace, they behave as many humans do seeking help for their mortally wounded family member or friend. Horses mourn their herd members when they die. Cats become depressed with a colony member is killed or dies. Honestly, I can't imagine why an intelligent human would ever question the ability of another species to mourn the death of a loved one. Some humans are stoic, some are emotional and the same holds true for animals.
Don't say there's no love in animals
Can we help before some others' death?
Thanks for this article.I think it's natural,that animals mourn their dead ones. They have often so much tighter bound to the group or the family,than people these days!
Why shouldn't they mourn their dead, what makes them any less hurt by the loss, but the fact that they are a different species? Sickening how it is to think we are the only ones who mourn our dead, how pompous! Every living being, at least, I believe they feel, hurt, cry, can be happy and joyous and can mourn, regardless of their race or species. Why do we as humans think we are so very different from them or them from us?! Now all we have to do is be more humane and more like our animal counterparts, who don't kill for sport, etc.
touching article
I've once seen in a documentary elephants crying over a dead companion. Very touching.
Also Koko the gorilla was very sad when her kitten died, it was astonishing.
Both are such amazing creatures, sensitive and intelligent, not like a well-known parasite called humanity.
There are so many things we do not know about the animal kingdom. At one time in prehistoric days, animals were worshipped as having greater intelligience than humans. Unfortunately, that has changed to the point that modern man abuses, neglects and experiments on animals thinking they are beneath them. In the modern world where women murder their own children and men beat up little babies, I would say these animals show an intelligience many of us have not yet discovered.
Thanks for this article.
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