DEATH OF A FRIEND: When chimpanzees die of untimely, accidental deaths, their companions have been known to go into a frenzy. A new recording of the death of an old female chimp shows those around her acted with quiet care, calling into question how much these great apes understand about death.
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After the death of her mother, Rosie had a fitful night, tossing and turning and getting up frequently.
That afternoon, Rosie, 20, and her mother's long-time companion, Blossom, 50, had tended to her mother as she lay dying, frequently stroking her hands and arms. Blossom's son had arrived just around the time of death and checked the body, shaking a lifeless arm. For days after the death, the three of them were relatively quiet, had little appetite and avoided the place where Rosie's mom had died.
Such a scenario has surely played out countless times in the course of human history, but the scene above comes from a new paper describing a rare documented death of an old infirmed chimpanzee and the reactions of her close family and companions
The death and surrounding chimp activity were captured on video cameras and are described in a paper published online April 26 in the journal Current Biology.
"We were surprised when we saw the reactions," says Jim Anderson, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Stirling in the U.K., and lead author of the study. Of the few previously described adult chimpanzee deaths, reactions from the rest of the group had often been quite different. Two traumatic accidental deaths in wild colonies, one of a male who fell from a tree and the other of a female who was mauled by a leopard, had elicited what Anderson describes as "frenzied excitement [and] complete mayhem" from the surrounding chimps.
Reactions to a more timely death, however, are little known. And this rare documentation provides new insight that "calls for a reassessment of the position that only humans have death awareness," Anderson says.
"We do know that chimpanzees are capable of showing empathetic reactions" and that they have self-awareness, which might contribute to a fuller understanding of death, he explains.
Other primates, however, have been shown to continue roosting with dead compatriots, showing little regard or concern for the rotting bodies around them.
Filming the 2008 death of Pansy, who was likely over the age of 50, was in part serendipity. The chimps lived at the Blair Drummond Safari and Adventure Park in Stirling and spent most of the winters in indoor enclosures. Video cameras had been installed for a study conducted the previous year but had not been used for months. When it appeared that Pansy was close to death, the keepers decided to allow her to stay with Rosie, Blossom and Blossom's son, Chippy, 20, (rather than risk trauma in trying to capture her for more active care) and to turn on the video cameras.
That afternoon, Pansy had moved into her daughter Rosie's nest from the previous night. As Pansy's breathing became labored and her movements diminished, Rosie and Blossom sat with her, grooming her and watching her. Chippy arrived shortly before Pansy likely died. All three periodically inspected Pansy's face and limbs, with Chippy at one point touching her neck.
About 10 minutes later, the enclosure's lights were turned off for the evening. Chippy, who occasionally made aggressive displays when lights were dimmed, charged Pansy's corpse and pounded it with two hands before leaving the area for the night (a display, Anderson speculates, that might have been "his final effort to elicit a sign of life from Pansy").
That night, the footage shows Rosie changing her sleeping posture about a dozen times, which indicates a disturbed rest when compared to the study from the year before in which each chimpanzee in the group shifted an average of four to five times a night. The others also seemed to have relatively restless sleep.
In the morning, Chippy charged the corpse twice more just after the daytime lights were turned on, a display that might have been spurred on by "some kind of anger about the loss of an important member of the group," similar to "feelings of anger and denial and frustration toward the deceased individual" that are common in human mourning, Anderson notes. And although physical aggression is not a common human response to a relatively timely death, "chimpanzees, in general, don't have the same inhibitory constraints in their behavior as we do," he explains.
About 10 minutes after the lights were turned on for the day, keepers arrived to remove the body from the platform. The three remaining chimpanzees were "profoundly subdued" that day and remained quieter, calmer and showed reduced appetites for weeks after the death, Anderson and his colleagues noted in their paper. The remaining chimps also avoided sleeping in the area where Pansy had died even though keepers had cleaned and disinfected it.
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22 Comments
Add CommentI had a labrador retriever and a cocker spaniel. They were constant companions for seven years. Then, the cocker spaniel died of old age overnight while his friend, the lab, was with him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe lab was subdued and sad for about three weeks - whining throughout the day and refusing food to the point that he lost quite a lot of weight. This is in contrast to other times, where the two dogs were separated for days at a time because the lab was a working hunter and the cocker was just a pet. In those "normal" separations neither dog was upset.
I think chimps and humans are not the only creatures aware of death.
Emotions and awareness of death have been seen in many animal species, including domestic pets as noticed by Space Samurai. I remember the chimpanzees studied by Jane Goodall showing concern for dead babies and elephants mourning a dead relative by tossing its bones. It is not a new finding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy are things like this always treated as a surprise by the scientific community, as though humans sprung magically into existence apart from the rest of the earth's fauna?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you subscribe to evolution, then differences between species can only be a matter of degree.
Awareness of death and reaction to it are accurate descriptions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Understanding" death is going too far. Even humans have problems doing this, as evidenced by the multitude of ideas about an after life, unsupported by firm evidence.
http://www.theonion.com/video/scientists-successfully-teach-gorilla-it-will-die,17165/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI still question the level of self-awareness in many animals, including the chimpanzee. If death was truly understood in these animals, as it is in humans, I think we would have seen signs of that intelligence centuries ago (as humans have been studying this creature a very long time). As to pets and death, I remember our pet cat had died (she was 16 years old) and very close to the older male cat. When her body was discovered the next morning, the older male literally walked over her trying to get attention from us. He did not even seem to care. I found this odd, because 20 years ago, I knew a cat that seemingly mourned its owners death (very aloof, depressed state). I think the emotional attributes we attach to the animals are not the same as human attributes but are on an entirely different level.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with only part of ralphskinner's comment. Yes, "understanding death" is going too far. Awareness is a better term or even reaction. For those of us who have a love of science and faith, after-life issues can still be both biological, psychological and spiritual. God made humans in a biological manner, that means we would have biological responses (such as the article indicates). It does not disprove a spiritual existence at all, but merely contemplates the biological processes that God may allow to use in order to give the person final brain activity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave these officials ever heared about Adam and Eve's Apple?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt never was. The Atlantean women did not want to work anymore in the plants of their prosporous country and asked : "Can't you men not make something that takes our place?
As the Atlanteans had forbidden anyone on the planet Earth to have slaves, enforced with a lightning stroke from Kthor, they used the DNA of a Gorilla and a Human and created the Chimpanzees. They could be trained to do repetetive work.
Therefore some human -type emotions are seen in Chimps.
Yes, the Atlanteans used the Tree Of Life, which they were forvbidden to use. In the Bible it is called the Original Sin.
Why not, although virus never need to die.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ Ennui.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOLWHAT?!
@ Ennui.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOLWHAT?!
Come to think of it: Our so-called 'after-life' is nothing but wishful thinking! Logically, (& bio-logically) speaking, there simply CANNOT be an 'after' life thereafter!(post-festum!)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHamlet was right! "the UNdiscovered country, from whose bourne NO traveller returns"....
Mourning is just a withdrawal symptom,we might also call it 'separation anxiety', suffered by all social animals ...
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee..."
No definitively
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo understand death, it is necessary to know at first that we exist
It is reasonable to speak about empathy (of identification) to characterize the behavior (similar but not identical in arbitrary and eternal human reference) of an animal who does not know that he exists?
To kill itself or to give his life to save the other one, is necessary to know that we exist, and as we know, in the animal kingdom the human being is only capable of an irrational behavior.
As you know, to perceive a sensory information, She must be double.
Example: the visual perception of an apple will be made by presence of the object associated with the same object memorized by the immediate memory. If one of both information comes to disappear, the object does not exist any more for the observer.
The abstracted reflection ( the thought) is the capacity to associate a very big series of visual memorized representations (images of the not present objects) with the respective sound representations of the same objects (not presents) in a monologue, that is in a dialogue with itself.
To know that we exist (to think) it is thus necessary to be able to communicate with itself, that is be two.
Fasgenitor.com
No definitively
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo understand death, it is necessary to know at first that we exist
It is reasonable to speak about empathy (of identification) to characterize the behavior (similar but not identical in arbitrary and eternal human reference) of an animal who does not know that he exists?
To kill itself or to give his life to save the other one, is necessary to know that we exist, and as we know, in the animal kingdom the human being is only capable of an irrational behavior.
As you know, to perceive a sensory information, She must be double.
Example: the visual perception of an apple will be made by presence of the object associated with the same object memorized by the immediate memory. If one of both information comes to disappear, the object does not exist any more for the observer.
The abstracted reflection ( the thought) is the capacity to associate a very big series of visual memorized representations (images of the not present objects) with the respective sound representations of the same objects (not presents) in a monologue, that is in a dialogue with itself.
To know that we exist (to think) it is thus necessary to be able to communicate with itself, that is be two.
Fasgenitor.com
When I was a kid I had a frog named Billy and a dog named Tommy. I knew Tommy loved Billy because whenever Tommy came into my bedroom he would go right up and lick the glass container Billy was housed in. One day Tommy came in the room when I had Billy on the floor. I thought Billy was a goner but all that Tommy did was lick Billy. It seemed like Billy kind of liked it because he looked like he was smiling like Jabba the Hut. This went on for several years until Billy died.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn that fateful day, I took Billy from his house and put him on the floor. Tommy had a sad look on his face as he approached the lifeless Billy.
Before I could do anything Tommy picked up Billy and ate him whole and dashed out of the room. I didn't see Tommy for several hours. When I finally found him he just looked at me and said, "tastes like chicken."
So do I believe that animals have feelings just like humans? Yes, I do and they can talk too!
that was a sad story but a cool story on how chimps react to that type of problem. They dont say they are like humans for nothing :) And I dont get how they were surprised on how the others reacted. It was one of them a part of there family. Chimps are so much like us all they need is a voice and they be just like us. It was true a touvhing story and something that should be shown all around.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven humans don't understand it. Will I know that I am dead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBefore reading this artical, I was mainly concerned about physical features like how much part of DNA human beings have in common with apes. It must be difficult to convince everyone in this kind of study, since emations and behavior are not so unversal as DNA. But it does also seem really interesting to study the similalities of their emotions and their behavior toward a certain event, such as death.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is just as wrong to say there is a God as it is to say there is not,simply because we don't know.Compared to what we knew about the universe a couple hundred years ago,and how little it was,and what we know now,and how huge,and incredible it really is.If there is a God what a powerful being it must be.Science only makes such a being even bigger.That's why it puzzles me that church goers refuse to to embrace the truth that science gives us..I am going to say there is life after death,although we as individuals don't live on all other life around does if you pardon the pun.But understanding death is as simple as knowing that a life has ended and nothing more whether it be chimp,man,or elephant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumans Comprehension Of Life And Death
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChimps and humans, life and death
A. From "Chimps May Be Aware of Others Deaths"
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/04/28/chimps-may-be-aware-of-others-deaths.html
- "These (chimp) mothers understood that there was something unusual about their infants, but whether for them that indicated that the infants would never come back to life remains a fascinating open question
- Chimpanzees may know something of someone elses mortality, but we have no way of knowing whether they understand their own mortality"
B. What about humans' comprehension of life and death?
The tremendous technological evolution of some humans since our chimp time not withstanding, how much has humanity's comprehension of life and death evolved by now?
Considering the potential tremendous practical personal and societal implications of furthering human comprehension of the origin, nature and evolution of life and the universe, humanity's advance since its chimp time is mostly in tooling-technology, and only barely little in comprehension of its own essence...
Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
03.2010 Updated Life Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page#5065
Cosmic Evolution Simplified
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427
Humans Comprehension Of Life And Death
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChimps and humans, life and death
A. From "Chimps May Be Aware of Others Deaths"
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/04/28/chimps-may-be-aware-of-others-deaths.html
- "These (chimp) mothers understood that there was something unusual about their infants, but whether for them that indicated that the infants would never come back to life remains a fascinating open question
- Chimpanzees may know something of someone elses mortality, but we have no way of knowing whether they understand their own mortality"
B. What about humans' comprehension of life and death?
The tremendous technological evolution of some humans since our chimp time not withstanding, how much has humanity's comprehension of life and death evolved by now?
Considering the potential tremendous practical personal and societal implications of furthering human comprehension of the origin, nature and evolution of life and the universe, humanity's advance since its chimp time is mostly in tooling-technology, and only barely little in comprehension of its own essence...
Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
03.2010 Updated Life Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page#5065
Cosmic Evolution Simplified
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427
Why do we run?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-all of us, flight or fight.