Curious incident of a dead giraffe

[Still Waters]

A curious incident of a deceased giraffe has reopened the question of whether animals mourn their dead.

Zoologists have witnessed a giraffe mother investigating and refusing to leave the body of her dead calf, the third such incident on record.

Other social animals such as elephants and chimpanzees are known to investigate their dead, especially the bodies of their close relatives.

Such behaviour raises the prospect that animals have a "mental model" of death.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19317067

[BiffSplitkins]

It's pretty arrogant of us humans to think that we are the only living creatures on this planet with actual feelings.

[Simbi Laveau]

Haven't they seen all the videos of cats and dogs,refusing to leave a mate's side. There were the two dogs in fukushima,where one woildnt leave his injured mates side ,and it sparked a movement to go in and save them .Sadly they separated them after rescue .

But this is documented so many times ,so many species.

Elephants rear and trumpet ,if you put elephant bones in front of them .Just bones...and they know

[EllJay]

Good story Still Waters. This reaction of the giraffe is, as they mentioned, usual with elephants and dolphins for example. I am pretty sure they have a concept of death and grief in them. The hardest part is for humans to take that in to consideration, because if we did we would have a hard time treating animals the way we do.

On a more humorous note. This giraffe has a hard time coming to grips with his impending doom.

Here is the Five Stages of Grief from a giraffes point of view.

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWTHP8zT28Q[/media]

[Mnemonix]

Very interesting.