Do Animals Understand Death? The Latest Science Might Surprise You

Few things person earned arsenic overmuch arsenic thought and attraction successful the corporate quality caput arsenic death. For arsenic agelong arsenic we’ve had the capableness to explicit ourselves done words and different forms of communication, the taxable of decease and dying has loomed ever present. But Susana Monsó, a Spain-based philosopher, argues that portion humanity’s peculiar spirit of fascination and dread astatine the conception of decease whitethorn beryllium unique, our cognition of it really isn’t.

Her book, Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death, was archetypal published successful Spanish successful 2021 but has present received an update and a revised English translation that volition beryllium retired later adjacent month. In the book, Monsó discusses the emerging tract of subject that seeks to recognize however animals presumption and respond to death. And she makes the beardown lawsuit that humans are acold from the lone animals to cognize the meaning of dying, adjacent if our vocabularies differ. Gizmodo spoke to Monsó astir the origins of her book, the “romantics and killjoys” of carnal cognition research, and wherefore the possum’s quality to play dormant reveals truthful overmuch astir however different animals grasp the quality of mortality. The pursuing speech has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Gizmodo: In your vocation arsenic a philosopher, you’ve mostly focused connected discussing and amended knowing the minds of nonhuman animals. But what specifically made you privation to constitute a fashionable subject publication astir however different animals acquisition the conception of death?

Monsó’: So academically speaking, I started moving connected this astatine a clip wherever I was doing a postdoc and I needed a caller taxable that was wholly antithetic from my doctoral dissertation to use for a project. And I thought of this taxable due to the fact that determination had been a bid of reports documenting animals’ reactions to the dormant and the dying. I’m ever benignant of monitoring the latest probe successful comparative cognition, and this had truly caught my oculus arsenic a caller emerging tract that was successful request of immoderate philosophical investigation of cardinal concepts, immoderate clarification of the halfway ideas astatine involvement here. And it’s tied into my wide interest, which has ever been successful those capacities that we deliberation of arsenic uniquely human, and that we thin to usage to crushed this thought of quality exceptionalism—this consciousness of motivation superiority that past allows america to exploit the earthy satellite without truly reasoning astir different beings.

But astatine the aforesaid time, I was astir to crook 30, and I deliberation it happens to a batch of radical that erstwhile they attack that property they commencement to deliberation a batch astir death. I’ve heard this from respective different people, and I deliberation it has to bash with with thing astir going into authoritative adulthood, truthful to speak. So I became benignant of obsessed with decease successful that clip successful my life. And astatine the time, I truly didn’t nexus the 2 things successful my head. I thought that my probe was wholly separated from this, but with clip and distance, I realized that I besides whitethorn person unconsciously turned to this taxable due to the fact that I needed answers myself. I needed to find a mode of coping with my ain existential fears.

Gizmodo: You constituent retired that scientists and philosophers person lone precocious started to earnestly survey however animals respond to death, a tract known arsenic comparative thanatology. Why has it taken people, and peculiarly experts successful cognition, truthful agelong to spot animals arsenic susceptible of knowing it?

Monsó: Comparative cognition successful wide is truly wary of the dangers of anthropomorphism and anthropomorphizing animals.  Many years ago, earlier the cognitive revolution, psychologists weren’t adjacent talking astir the intelligence states of animals. They were conscionable describing their behavior. And adjacent though behaviorism is expected to beryllium a happening of the past, I deliberation it inactive has immoderate beingness today, oregon astatine slightest immoderate of its underlying assumptions are contiguous successful fields similar modern comparative cognition. And I deliberation that has a batch to bash with the inclination of a batch of radical to privation to enactment distant from topics that dependable precise human-like, toward topics that could pb america to prosecute successful anthropomorphism. That’s my guess. And this means determination are respective topics that it’s taken a portion for scientists to instrumentality seriously, adjacent nowadays.

Daniel Dennett [a well-respected philosopher and cognitive idiosyncratic who passed astatine the property of 82 this April] made this favoritism betwixt the romantics and the killjoys. And you tin inactive spot immoderate scientists who are consenting to speech successful quality presumption astir animals, are consenting to speech astir things similar relationship and morality utilizing these kinds of words, whereas others inactive privation to usage words that acceptable america isolated from animals, words similar affiliation alternatively of friendship, oregon prosocial behaviour alternatively of morality. And I recognize wherefore they are doing it, and I deliberation the reasons are important. But I besides deliberation that there’s thing incorrect with asking definite questions, specified as: Do animals recognize death? So agelong arsenic we survey them precise cautiously and successful a mode that’s that’s precise mindful of the information that we could prosecute successful anthropomorphism.

Gizmodo: Something that I truly recovered interesting, not conscionable successful your book, but successful speechmaking the interviews and the reactions others person had truthful far, is that radical volition often talk astir your book oregon astir however animals spot decease done the lens of grief oregon mourning, framing it successful the ways radical thin to respond to death. But you effort to grow our knowing of decease beyond that. Why is it important to possibly disconnect ourselves from that quality perspective?

Monsó: We bash request to onslaught a equilibrium betwixt daring to inquire these questions, but besides being mindful of the information that we are talking astir different taxon with different ecologies, different societal structures, different sensory capacities. They person antithetic bodies and antithetic ways of interacting with the world, of interacting with each other, of doing each sorts of things that they person to bash for survival. So adjacent if they person an knowing of death, they’re not going to person the aforesaid knowing that we bash necessarily. And if they respond emotionally to death, it’s not going to beryllium needfully similar our ain reactions.

And I deliberation the taxable of grief, it’s truthful entangled with the conception of knowing decease that truthful galore radical person a batch of difficulties separating these 2 ideas—the thought of knowing decease and the thought of grieving. But they are precise antithetic ideas. You tin recognize that idiosyncratic has died without grieving that person. And successful fact, we bash that each the time. We perceive astir celebrated radical dying, and we don’t grieve their deaths, due to the fact that we don’t person a enslaved with them. And for animals successful the wild, they person a batch of acquisition with death, and a batch of the deaths that they are going to witnesser are not going to beryllium deaths of individuals that they attraction about, truthful it’s precise improbable that they’re going to grieve them. But this doesn’t mean that they don’t recognize what’s going on.

Another happening is that decease is precise often a summation for a batch of animals. For predators, for instance, decease is not a loss. it’s a gain. It means that they’re going to person a afloat tummy that night. So, I deliberation it’s precise important to abstracted these 2 ideas.

Gizmodo: You speech astir tons of animals passim the book, but it’s not until the extremity that you really sermon the critter successful your title, the humble possum [In North America, “possum” is colloquially used to notation to the Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), though a related but chiseled radical of marsupials recovered successful Australia are besides often called possums arsenic well]. Why are these marsupials successful peculiar an important illustration of however decease mightiness beryllium wide seen passim the carnal kingdom?

Monsó: Basically, successful my book, I’m trying to reason that the conception of decease is easier to get than we usually presuppose, and past we tin expect it to beryllium reasonably wide successful nature. And the opossum provides 1 of the champion pieces of grounds that we person of this, and that’s due to the fact that she engages successful a precise elaborate decease show whenever she feels threatened. She goes into what’s called thanatosis—this decease feigning wherever she incorporates each sorts of signals of death. She adopts the bodily and facial look of a corpse. Her assemblage somesthesia drops. Her breathing and bosom complaint are reduced. She secretes this putrid smelling liquid, and she stops responding to the world. And if you didn’t cognize successful beforehand astir her small trick, you would beryllium fooled by it for sure. Now, the opossum doesn’t needfully recognize what she’s doing. For her, this absorption is astir apt analogous to erstwhile we are successful a authorities of fearfulness and our pupils dilate, oregon our hairsbreadth stands connected end, and we’re not controlling this. We’re not adjacent alert of this, but it happens automatically. For the opossum, it’s astir apt thing similar that. It’s astir apt besides an automatic process. However, we request to person a crushed wherefore this defence mechanics evolved and wherefore it has the signifier that it has.

So a bully mode of reasoning astir this is by thinking, for instance, of the illustration of peacocks and their tail. Biologists often accidental that by looking astatine the peacock’s tail, we tin get a glimpse of what the peahen finds sexy, right? Because the peacock’s process is evidently a immense disadvantage successful a batch of areas, but it’s precise advantageous, due to the fact that the peahen finds it sexy, truthful it makes it much apt for the peacock to reproduce. So by looking astatine the peacock’s tail, we tin person a model into the caput of the peahen.

The opossum’s decease show is akin successful that it provides a model into the minds of her predators. There are respective reasons wherefore a predator mightiness not privation to devour an carnal that’s already dead, oregon mightiness similar to store it for aboriginal consumption, and this tin springiness the opossum a accidental to escape. But for this to work, she needs to enactment connected a convincing decease display. So the opossum is simply a bully portion of grounds that determination are predators successful the satellite with a conception of death, whose cognition has acted arsenic a enactment unit and has fixed signifier to the opossum’s show implicit galore generations—because the much elaborate the display, the much convincing it was, the little apt it would beryllium that she would get eaten, and truthful the much apt it would beryllium that she would reproduce.

And the opossum is not the lone carnal who does this. There are different animals with precise elaborate decease displays, but they’re rather abstracted from each different successful the histrion of life, which suggests that these enactment pressures are rather widespread, that they beryllium among antithetic predators and antithetic habitats. And truthful this, too, points to the conception of decease being really beauteous wide successful nature.

Gizmodo: Your publication provides a batch of truly fascinating lessons and reminders astir decease and however it’s seen successful the world. But what bash you anticipation readers astir instrumentality distant from speechmaking it?

Monsó: So my anticipation is that the publication volition scope readers who are scientifically curious, but not peculiarly into animals. Because I’m hoping that my publication volition assistance make immoderate awe for the earthy satellite successful these people, and possibly a volition to wage much attraction to animals and to observe however fascinating they are successful their diversity, and successful the galore ways successful which they unrecorded successful the world. The radical who emotion animals and who work my book, they’re already connected my side, truthful to speak. But it’s my anticipation to scope these different radical and to animate successful them this consciousness of respect for the earthy satellite that I deliberation is an inevitable effect of simply paying attraction to it and seeing however wondrous and astonishing it truly is.